Late Cretaceous records of environmental change suggest that Deccan Traps (DT) volcanism contributed to the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (KPB) ecosystem crisis. However, testing this hypothesis requires identification of the KPB in the DT. We constrain the location of the KPB with high-precision argon-40/argon-39 data to be coincident with changes in the magmatic plumbing system. We also found that the DT did not erupt in three discrete large pulses and that >90% of DT volume erupted in <1 million years, with ~75% emplaced post-KPB. Late Cretaceous records of climate change coincide temporally with the eruption of the smallest DT phases, suggesting that either the release of climate-modifying gases is not directly related to eruptive volume or DT volcanism was not the source of Late Cretaceous climate change.

Bolide impact and flood volcanism compete as leading candidates for the cause of terminal-Cretaceous mass extinctions. High-precision (40)Ar/(39)Ar data indicate that these two mechanisms may be genetically related, and neither can be considered in isolation. The existing Deccan Traps magmatic system underwent a state shift approximately coincident with the Chicxulub impact and the terminal-Cretaceous mass extinctions, after which ~70% of the Traps' total volume was extruded in more massive and more episodic eruptions. Initiation of this new regime occurred within ~50,000 years of the impact, which is consistent with transient effects of impact-induced seismic energy. Postextinction recovery of marine ecosystems was probably suppressed until after the accelerated volcanism waned.

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[1] Major and trace element and Sr, Nd, and Pb isotope data for lavas from 12 seamounts along the western (older) 1500 km section of the Louisville Seamount Chain in the southwest Pacific show remarkably uniform compositions over a ∼30-40 Myr period of volcanism. All 56 samples analyzed are alkalic to transitional in composition. Unlike Hawaiian volcanoes, Louisville volcanoes appear not to pass through a sequence of evolutionary stages characterized by older tholeiitic basalts overlain by incompatible element enriched alkalic and silica-undersaturated lavas. The youngest lavas from a given Louisville seamount tend to have the least enriched incompatible element compositions. This unusual chemical evolution may be the result of re-melting of heterogeneous hot spot mantle that was partially depleted during the earlier, age progressive stages. The oldest Louisville seamounts were constructed close to the extinct Osbourn Trough spreading center, located north of the chain, but age-progressive lavas from these older seamounts are not significantly different to lavas from younger seamounts. This may indicate that spreading at this fossil ridge ceased several tens of millions of years before the oldest Louisville seamounts were constructed. Large fracture zones apparently had no significant effects on the composition of Louisville magmatism. However, lavas from the central part of the Louisville Seamount Chain, where volcanoes are smaller and more widely spaced, tend to have more variable and more enriched compositions. We suggest this may reflect smaller degrees of melting resulting from greater lithosphere thickness, and hence a shorter melting column for this section of the Louisville Seamounts.

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A 2 to 4 °C warming episode, known as the Latest Maastrichtian warming event (LMWE), preceded the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (KPB) mass extinction at 66.05 ± 0.08 Ma and has been linked with the onset of voluminous Deccan Traps volcanism. Here, we use direct measurements of melt-inclusion CO2 concentrations and trace-element proxies for CO2 to test the hypothesis that early Deccan magmatism triggered this warming interval. We report CO2 concentrations from NanoSIMS and Raman spectroscopic analyses of melt-inclusion glass and vapor bubbles hosted in magnesian olivines from pre-KPB Deccan primitive basalts. Reconstructed melt-inclusion CO2 concentrations range up to 0.23 to 1.2 wt% CO2 for lavas from the Saurashtra Peninsula and the Thakurvadi Formation in the Western Ghats region. Trace-element proxies for CO2 concentration (Ba and Nb) yield estimates of initial melt concentrations of 0.4 to 1.3 wt% CO2 prior to degassing. Our data imply carbon saturation and degassing of Deccan magmas initiated at high pressures near the Moho or in the lower crust. Furthermore, we find that the earliest Deccan magmas were more CO2 rich, which we hypothesize facilitated more efficient flushing and outgassing from intrusive magmas. Based on carbon cycle modeling and estimates of preserved lava volumes for pre-KPB lavas, we find that volcanic CO2 outgassing alone remains insufficient to account for the magnitude of the observed latest Maastrichtian warming. However, accounting for intrusive outgassing can reconcile early carbon-rich Deccan Traps outgassing with observed changes in climate and atmospheric pCO2.

We collected thermal infrared video of two explosive eruptions at Stromboli in June 2008 and manually traced the trajectories of 95 particles launched during two eruptions. We found that 10–15 % of the analyzed trajectories deviated from predicted curves due to collisions, causing one particle to travel horizontally more than twice as far as expected. Furthermore, we observed an oscillatory cooling behavior for the airborne pyroclasts, with a median period of 0.46 s. Measured cooling was typically much faster than model-predicted cooling with discrepancies of up to 40 % between measured cooling and theoretical modeling. We interpret the measured cooling curves as resulting from the spinning and twisting and tearing of particles during travel: the periodic re-exposing of the hotter core of the pyroclasts to the atmosphere may cause the observed oscillations, and the spinning may accelerate cooling by enhancing convective heat transfer. Current volcanic trajectory and cooling models do not account for projectile collisions, spinning, or tearing and can thus severely underestimate the maximum landing distance and cooling rates of large pyroclasts

The Louisville Seamount Chain is a 4300 km long chain of submarine volcanoes in the southwestern Pacific that spans an age range comparable to that of the Hawaiian-Emperor chain and is commonly thought to represent a hot spot track. Dredging in 2006 recovered igneous rocks from 33 stations on 22 seamounts covering some 49 Myr of the chain's history. All samples are alkalic, similar to previous dredge and drill samples, providing no evidence for a Hawaiian-type tholeiitic shield-volcano stage. Major and trace element variations appear to be predominantly controlled by small but variable extents of fractional crystallization and by partial melting. Isotopic values define only a narrow range, in agreement with a surprising long-term source homogeneity-relative to the length scale of melting-and overlap with proposed fields for the ''C'' and ''FOZO'' mantle end-members. Trace element and isotope geochemistry is uncorrelated with either seamount age or lithospheric thickness at the time of volcanism, except for a small number of lavas from the westernmost Louisville Seamounts built on young (<20 Ma old) oceanic crust. The Louisville hot spot has been postulated to be the source of the 120 Ma Ontong Java Plateau, but the Louisville isotopic signature cannot have evolved from a source with isotopic ratios like those measured for Ontong Java Plateau basalts. On the other hand, this signature can be correlated with that of samples dredged from the Danger Islands Troughs of the Manihiki Plateau, which has been interpreted as a rifted fragment of the ''Greater'' Ontong Java Plateau.