The DOI matches its Crossref record; 127 of the 131 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Mercury linked to Deccan Traps volcanism, climate change and the end-Cretaceous mass extinction
Open accessAbstract
Abstract Mercury (Hg) anomalies linked to Large Igneous Provinces (LIP) volcanism have been identified in sediments across all five major mass extinctions in Earth's history. This study tests whether Hg in marine sediments is a reliable proxy linking Deccan Traps volcanic eruptions to late Maastrichtian global climate warming and the mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (KPB). Our primary test site is the Elles section in Tunisia, the auxiliary Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) to El Kef. Elles has the most complete marine sedimentary record and a high average sedimentation rate of ~4.7 cm/ky. We chose the Hor Hahar section in Israel to corroborate the geographic distribution of Hg fallout from Deccan volcanism. Reliability of the Hg proxy over the last 550 ky of the Maastrichtian to early Danian was evaluated based on high-resolution age control (orbital cyclostratigraphy), stable isotope climate record, Hg concentrations, biotic turnover and mass extinction. These results were correlated with the pulsed Deccan eruptive history constrained previously by U-Pb zircon geochronology. Our results support Hg as robust proxy for Deccan volcanism with large Hg spikes marking “extreme event” (EE) pulsed eruptions correlative with climate warming peaks separated by steady, less intense eruptions. Long-term global climate warming began near ~350 ky pre-KPB, reached maximum warming (3–4 °C) between 285 and 200 ky pre-KPB, followed by gradual cooling and rapid temperature drop between 45 and 25 ky pre-KPB. During the last 25 ky before the KPB, multiple Hg EE eruptions correlate with hyperthermal warming that culminated in the rapid mass extinction at Elles during ≤1000 years of the Cretaceous. These latest Cretaceous Hg peaks may correlate with massive, distal, Deccan-sourced lava flows (>1000 km long) that traversed the Indian subcontinent and flowed into the Bay of Bengal, bracketing the mass extinction. These results support Deccan volcanism as a primary driver of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.
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In the citing paper
“The Elles section in Tunisia is composed of marls, silty marls, shales, and clay stones deposited in 100- to 150-m paleodepth on the continental shelf of the Tethys seaway (12, 87, 88).”
From Earth orbital rhythms links timing of Deccan trap volcanism phases and global climate change (2025) · cites this paper as [12]
In the citing paper
“It has a cyclostratigraphic age model based on precession cycle counting”
From Earth orbital rhythms links timing of Deccan trap volcanism phases and global climate change (2025) · cites this paper as [12]
In the citing paper
“In the Elles section, this interval was characterized by high-stress conditions for benthic foraminifera (12).”
From Earth orbital rhythms links timing of Deccan trap volcanism phases and global climate change (2025) · cites this paper as [12]
In the citing paper
“Nevertheless, an astronomically calibrated record of mercury (Hg) anomalies from Tunisia (12) advocates a tight correlation between eruptions (11, 14) and global climate events.”
From Earth orbital rhythms links timing of Deccan trap volcanism phases and global climate change (2025) · cites this paper as [12]
In the citing paper
“The reduced volumes of Danian volcanism in the DVP sustains the models of delayed biotic recovery and the Hg-contamination in the earliest Danian sedimentary records (Punekar et al., 2014;Keller et al., 2020;Mittal et al., 2022;Callegaro et al., 2023).”
From Spatio-temporal volume recalibration shows Deccan volcanism caused Terminal Cretaceous Mass Extinction (2026) · cites this paper as Keller et al., 2020
Citations
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Research works printed but not linked: 1
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Cited by
Abidli, A., Huang, Y., Ben Rejeb, Z., Zaoui, A., & Park, C. B. (2022) · Chemosphere · doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.133102 · Cited by 194
Identifying Future-Proof Science
Vickers, P. (2022) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192862730.001.0001 · Cited by 57
Tremblin, M., Khozyem, H. M., Adatte, T., Spangenberg, J. E., Fillon, C., Grauls, A., Hunger, T., Nowak, A., Läuchli, C., Lasseur, É., et al. (2022) · Global and Planetary Change · doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2022.103794 · Cited by 53
Self-citationGilabert, V., Batenburg, S. J., Arenillas, I., & Arz, J. A. (2021) · Geology · doi:10.1130/g49214.1 · Cited by 50
Yager, J. A., West, A. J., Thibodeau, A. M., Corsetti, F. A., Rigo, M., Berelson, W. M., Bottjer, D. J., Greene, S. E., Ibarra, Y., Jadoul, F., et al. (2021) · Earth-Science Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103775 · Cited by 49
Metadata
- Authors
- Keller, G., Mateo, P., Monkenbusch, J., Thibault, N., Punekar, J., Spangenberg, J. E., Abramovich, S., Ashckenazi-Polivoda, S., Schoene, B., Eddy, M. P., Samperton, K. M., Khadri, S. F. R., & Adatte, T.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IN)
- University of Lausanne (CH)
- Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (IL)
- Purdue University West Lafayette (US)
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (US)
- Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University (IN)
- Corresponding author
- Keller, Gerta
- ORCID
- Venue
- Global and Planetary Change
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-11
- Volume
- 194
- Pages
- 103312
- ISSN
- 0921-8181 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3083573130
- Semantic Scholar
- bf4d462f46aa0608be68b7c307d04831c66d3b6d
- Cited by
- 130
- References
- 131
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 10.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- erratum (2021-03-01)
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Global and Planetary Change (acceptedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- SERVAL (Université de Lausanne) (publishedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- IRIS (submittedVersion)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Princeton University
- Carlsbergfondet
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geochemistry and Petrology › Geological and Geochemical Analysis
- Keywords
- mercury anomalies, Deccan Traps, large igneous provinces, end-Cretaceous mass extinction, Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, hyperthermals, extreme events, volcanic eruptions, paleoclimate, biotic turnover, zircon U-Pb geochronology
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- The paper
- Keller, G., Mateo, P., Monkenbusch, J., Thibault, N., Punekar, J., Spangenberg, J. E., Abramovich, S., Ashckenazi-Polivoda, S., Schoene, B., Eddy, M. P., Samperton, K. M., Khadri, S. F. R., & Adatte, T. (2020). Mercury linked to Deccan Traps volcanism, climate change and the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Global and Planetary Change. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2020.103312
