Ashok Sahni
Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science
Volume 122 Issue 2 April 2013 pp 289-307
M R Rao Ashok Sahni R S Rana Poonam Verma
Early Eocene sedimentary successions of south Asia, are marked by the development of extensive fossilbearing, lignite-rich sediments prior to the collision of India with Asia and provide data on contemporary equatorial faunal and vegetational assemblages. One such productive locality in western India is the Vastan Lignite Mine representing approximately a 54–52 Ma sequence dated by the presence of benthic zone marker species,
Volume 126 Issue 2 March 2017 Article ID 0017
Sarajit Sensarma Hukam Singh R S Rana Debajyoti Paul Ashok Sahni
The recognition of pyroclasts preserved in sedimentary environments far from its source is uncommon. We here describe occurrences of several centimetres-thick discontinuous basaltic pumice lenses occurring within the Early Eocene Vastan lignite mine sedimentary sequence, western India at two different levels –one at ~5 m and the other at 10 m above a biostratigraphically constrained 52 Ma old marker level postdating the Deccan Volcanism. These sections have received global attention as they record mammalian and plant radiations. We infer the repetitive occurrence of pumice have been sourced from a ~52–50Ma MORB related to sea-floor spreading in the western Arabian Sea, most plausibly along the Carlsberg Ridge. Pyroclasts have skeletal plagioclase with horsetail morphologies ± pyroxene ± Fe–Ti oxide euhedral crystals, and typically comprise of circular polymodal (radii ≤10 to ≥30 μm), non-coalescing microvesicles (>40–60%). The pumice have undergone considerable syngenetic alteration during oceanic transport and post-burial digenesis, and are a composite mixture of Fe–Mn-rich clay and hydrated alteredbasaltic glass (palagonite). The Fe–Mn-rich clay is extremely low in SiO₂, Al₂ O₂, TiO₂ , MgO, alkalies and REE, but very high in Fe₂O₃, MnO, P, Ba, Sr contents, and palagonitization involved significant loss of SiO₂, Al₂O₃, MgO and variable gain in Fe₂O₃, TiO₂, Ni, V, Zr, Zn and REE. Bubble initiationto growth in the ascending basaltic magma (liquidus ~1200–1250◦C) may have occured in ~3 hr. Shortdistance transport, non-connected vesicles, deposition in inner shelf to more confined lagoonal condition in the Early Eocene and quick burial helped preservation of the pumice in Vastan. Early Eocene Arabian Sea volcanism thus might have been an additional source to marginal sediments along the passive margin of western India.
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