The Indian subcontinent is central to two major events in Earth history: the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/Pg) mass extinction and the Indo-Asian biotic interchange. The effects of these events—tectonic migration, volcanism, mass extinction—on India's land biota remain poorly understood due to historic understudy of India's geological record leading up to and following these events. 

India at the Crossroads

  • India was interlocked with other southern landmasses until ca. 150 Ma, when it migrated northwards, in near-isolation, across the equator to contact Asia ca. 50 Ma.
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  • Timing and nature of India’s trajectory are disputed, but this event profoundly affected the Asian and Indian biotas and is a proposed explanation for the origin, evolution, and dispersal of some major continental tetrapod groups. 
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  • During its migration, India passed over a volcanic hot spot that led to massive outpouring of basalt lava (Deccan Traps). It was among the largest eruptive events in Earth history and has been linked to ecosystem destabilization related to the K/Pg mass extinction. 

  • The Indian geological record of this interval has received sparse sampling of fossil horizons, limited study and reexamination of previously collected fossils, and coarse geochronological control.
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  • We developed a US-India collaborative project of geochronologists, sedimentologists, stratigraphers, paleobotanists, and vertebrate paleontologists to (i) collect Cretaceous and Paleogene fossils; (ii) establish a high-resolution chronostratigraphy; and (iii) use this temporally constrained record in India to test hypotheses of the K/Pg mass extinction and Gondwanan paleobiogeography. ​
Funding: ​National Geographic Society, UW Royalty Research Fund, NSF EAR-SGP 1736787 “India at the Crossroads—Biotic Change in Continental Vertebrates Across the Cretaceous-Paleogene” PIs: G.P. Wilson Mantilla, J.A. Wilson Mantilla, T. Tobin, P. Renne; SP: D. Mohabey, B. Samant.
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