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1 Global paleogeographic map during Late Cretaceous showing the main fossil localities mentioned in the text. 1. Lameta Formation (India), 2. Intertrappean beds (India), 3. Kallamedu Formation (India), 4. Pab Formation (Pakistan), 5. Maevarano Formation (Madagascar), 6. Ortega Formation (Colombia), 7. Rognacian Formation (France)
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The paleogeographic history of the Indian sub-continent is unique among Earth's landmasses. From being part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana for most of the Mesozoic, through a period of isolation as a drifting entity in the Late Cretaceous, to colliding with Asia near the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, the Indian subcontinent has been associate...
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Mammalian lineage is deep rooted in Mesozoic, with several taxa and ichnotaxa described worldwide. One of the most prolific mammaliaform ichnospecies is Brasilichnium elusivum, which is extremely abundant in the Lower Cretaceous Botucatu Formation of the Brazilian Paraná Basin, as well as in other Mesozoic ichnofaunas of North America and Africa. I...
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... There are many different and well-established methods, such as ordinary cluster analysis, ordination analysis, or network analysis, that are commonly used to analyse and identify distinct fossil assemblages and to gain insight into the processes and mechanisms driving their spatial and hierarchical organization (e.g. Dunhill et al. 2016;Rojas et al. 2017;Jattiot et al. 2018;Halliday et al. 2020;Neige et al. 2021;Pelletier 2021;Penn-Clarke & Harper 2021;Gibert et al. 2022;Viglietti et al. 2022). However, the hespdiv method offers several unique advantages over these methods (summarized in Table 1) in studying the Bretskyan hierarchy. ...
The objective determination of boundaries of bioregions is a nontrivial problem. Here we present a new method family, HespDiv, and an algorithm for its implementation in a new R package: hespdiv. The hespdiv algorithm performs iterative hierarchical nonlinear spatial subdivisions of taxic data into topologically contiguous geographic regions. Bioregions obtained in this way can be viewed as realistic and causally important entities belonging to eco‐genealogical Bretskyan hierarchy. The possibilities of the hespdiv algorithm are successfully demonstrated on the Miocene mammal data from the contiguous United States, where a hierarchical set of bioregions was determined. The algorithm works in a decision‐tree‐like manner by generating multiple split‐lines, that each subdivide a study area and data into two parts per iteration per region. The performance of each split‐line is measured using a combination of data generalization and comparison functions that can be custom made or selected from pre‐set subdivision methods. In each iteration, the best split‐line is used to produce a subdivision, until no more adequate split‐lines are found. The process results in a hierarchy of subdivisions of distribution of taxonomic occurrences in space. Benefits of hespdiv include the delineation of spatially contiguous clusters, flexibility, and unique representations of spatial hierarchy tree. The package is shown to be effective in determining significant contiguous spatial structures of biota, so called geobiomes, in sufficiently sampled time intervals and regions. The flexibility and ease to use of the approach allows its application to the whole range of palaeo‐variables and environmental proxies.
... Moreover, the factors and modes of macroevolution apparently vary with time-for example, the Cambrian explosion or Ediacaran-Cambrian radiation and post-Cambrian evolution (Gould 1990;Erwin 2011;Mitchell et al. 2019); environment (Jablonski et al. 2006;Miller and Foote 2009;Kiessling et al. 2010;Boyle et al. 2013;Spiridonov et al. 2015;Tomašových et al. 2015); and timescales (Van Dam et al. 2006;Spiridonov et al. 2017b;Crampton et al. 2018;Beaufort et al. 2022). Furthermore, macroevolution is strongly influenced by Earth's systems: geological, climatic, and paleoceanographic factors (Marshall et al. 1982;Lieberman and Eldredge 1996;Lieberman 2003;Saupe et al. 2019;Carrillo et al. 2020;Halliday et al. 2020), but also by biotic interactions, which can translate into patterns that are apparent on extremely long timescales of tens to hundreds of millions of years (Vermeij 1977(Vermeij , 2019Jablonski 2008;Erwin 2012). There are also questions on the role of general stochasticity and path dependence/memory in evolutionary dynamics (Schopf 1979;Hoffman 1987;Gould 2001Gould , 2002Cornette and Lieberman 2004;Erwin 2011Erwin , 2016. ...
Scaling fluctuation analyses of marine animal diversity and extinction and origination rates based on the Paleobiology Database occurrence data have opened new perspectives on macroevolution, supporting the hypothesis that the environment (climate proxies) and life (extinction and origination rates) are scaling over the “megaclimate” biogeological regime (from ≈1 Myr to at least 400 Myr). In the emerging picture, biodiversity is a scaling “crossover” phenomenon being dominated by the environment at short timescales and by life at long timescales with a crossover at ≈40 Myr. These findings provide the empirical basis for constructing the Fractional MacroEvolution Model (FMEM), a simple stochastic model combining destabilizing and stabilizing tendencies in macroevolutionary dynamics, driven by two scaling processes: temperature and turnover rates.
Macroevolution models are typically deterministic (albeit sometimes perturbed by random noises) and are based on integer-ordered differential equations. In contrast, the FMEM is stochastic and based on fractional-ordered equations. Stochastic models are natural for systems with large numbers of degrees of freedom, and fractional equations naturally give rise to scaling processes.
The basic FMEM drivers are fractional Brownian motions (temperature, T ) and fractional Gaussian noises (turnover rates, E + ) and the responses (solutions), are fractionally integrated fractional relaxation noises (diversity [ D ], extinction [ E ], origination [ O ], and E − = O − E ). We discuss the impulse response (itself representing the model response to a bolide impact) and derive the model's full statistical properties. By numerically solving the model, we verified the mathematical analysis and compared both uniformly and irregularly sampled model outputs with paleobiology series.
... If the new tonnage calculations herein are close to correct, then it is all the more remarkable that Bruhathkayosaurus dwelled on India, because at the time the subcontinent was on its epic voyage tectonically sailing across the eastern Tethys ocean as that was being transformed into the Indian ocean (Chatterjee et al. 2017;Halliday et al. 2020), so its habitat space was limited in extent. The scarcity and poor preservation of ultra large sauropod bones may be due to the taphonomic difficulty of burying extremely large skeletons in sufficiently deep fluvial sediments, as well as the very low population densities of such monsters (Carpenter 2006;Paul 2019). ...
Since the publication of an apparently gigantic sauropod vertebra from the Late Jurassic of western North America in the late 1800s, the possibility that land animals grew to be as massive as the greatest whales has been a matter of discussion. The recent clarification of the phylogenetic and anatomical identity of a bone from the Late Cretaceous of India, also suggests the existence of a sauropod of such cetacean like bulk, possibly in the range of 110–170 tonnes, although with a more probable mass in the area of 110–130 tonnes. Recent re-estimates of the specific gravities of sauropods are used to recalculate the masses of the largest sauropods. Also, linear equations were developed to predict the total length of the femur of Bruhathkayosaurus from different osteological variables. It was found that femur length to tibia length scales with negative allometry in sauropods, and therefore, estimating the body mass from the tibia length of Bruhathkayosaurus may overestimate its mass. Potential reasons for the apparent ability of land animal groups – sauropods especially – to be at least as massive as creatures of the seas, and for longer spans of geological time, are tentatively suggested.
... Our results combined with previous work on fossiliferous sites in the DTVP (Hansen et al., 2005;Mohabey and Samant, 2013;Mohabey et al., 2019) suggest the presence of at least six distinct groups of localities: C30N infratrappeans (e.g., Rahioli), 30N intertrappeans (e.g., Mohgaon Kalan, Bagwanya, Bharudpura, Ukala), C30N-C29R infratrappeans (e.g., Dongargaon), C29R Maastrichtian infratrappeans (e.g., Bara Simla), C29R Maastrichtian intertrappeans (e. g., Ranipur, Takli, Anjar), and C29R 'transitional' intertrappeans (e.g., Naskal, Rangapur, ?Kisalpuri, ?Upparhati). These temporally distinct sites and associated biota force reconsideration of simplistic lumping of fossils from infratrappean and intertrappean localities in faunal discriminatory analyses (e.g., Halliday et al., 2018Halliday et al., , 2020. ...
The first Cretaceous mammals described from India were recovered from the Naskal locality, on the southeastern edge of the Deccan Traps Volcanic Province (DTVP), where it is preserved between two basalt flows. Because the DTVP eruptions spanned the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (KPB), it is often unknown whether trap-associated fossil sites are latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) or early Paleocene in age. The Naskal locality accounts for nearly half of published mammal records from DTVP-associated sediments as well as a host of other vertebrate microfossils. Its age takes on singular importance in the context of mammalian evolution in India and the effects of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction and subsequent evolutionary radiation of placentals. Here we describe two new mammal species, Indoclemensia naskalensis gen. et sp. nov. and I. magnus sp. nov., from Naskal and present evidence from ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar geochronology, magnetostratigraphy, and chemostratigraphy of the over- and underlying basalt flows to refine the age of the Naskal locality and nearby Rangapur locality. In conjunction with palynostratigraphy and vertebrate biostratigraphy, these sites can be confidently restricted to a <100 kyr interval spanning the KPB. The most probable ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar age is latest Cretaceous (66.136–66.056 Ma), but an earliest Paleogene age cannot be ruled out. We explore the implications of this age assignment for the Deccan chemostratigraphy and Deccan volcanism, Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/Pg) mass extinction, Indian mammalian faunal evolution, and the timing of the origin of placental mammals.
... Our results combined with previous work on fossiliferous sites in the DTVP (Hansen et al., 2005;Mohabey and Samant, 2013;Mohabey et al., 2019) suggest the presence of at least six distinct groups of localities: C30N infratrappeans (e.g., Rahioli), 30N intertrappeans (e.g., Mohgaon Kalan, Bagwanya, Bharudpura, Ukala), C30N-C29R infratrappeans (e.g., Dongargaon), C29R Maastrichtian infratrappeans (e.g., Bara Simla), C29R Maastrichtian intertrappeans (e. g., Ranipur, Takli, Anjar), and C29R 'transitional' intertrappeans (e.g., Naskal, Rangapur, ?Kisalpuri, ?Upparhati). These temporally distinct sites and associated biota force reconsideration of simplistic lumping of fossils from infratrappean and intertrappean localities in faunal discriminatory analyses (e.g., Halliday et al., 2018Halliday et al., , 2020. ...
The first Cretaceous mammals described from India were recovered from the Naskal locality, located near the village of Naskal in the state of Telangana. The Naskal locality is located on the eastern edge of the Deccan Traps Volcanic Province (DTVP), where it is preserved between two basalt flows. Naskal and similarly preserved sites are “intertrappean” in position and are distinguished from “infratrappean” sedimentary exposures, which are positionally below the locally lowest basalt flow. Historically, this field-based designation has been used as a proxy for relative age assignments, with intertrappean sites generally considered to be of similar age to each other, but collectively younger than infratrappean (Lameta Formation) sites. However, the DTVP flow stratigraphy is complex, so this age proxy can be incomplete and misleading. Moreover, because the DTVP eruptions spanned the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (KPB), it is often unknown whether intertrappean sites, including Naskal, are Cretaceous or Paleogene in age.
Naskal accounts for nearly half of published mammal records from DVTP-associated sediments, as well as a host of other microfossils. The age of the Naskal locality takes on singular importance in the context of mammalian evolution in India and the effects of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction and subsequent evolutionary radiation. Here we present evidence from Ar/Ar geochronology, magnetostratigraphy, and chemostratigraphy of the over- and underlying basalt flows to narrow the permissible age of the sediments at the Naskal locality. In conjunction with palynostratigraphy and vertebrate biostratigraphy, this site can be confidently restricted to a <100 ka interval spanning the KPB. The most probable Ar/Ar age is latest Cretaceous, but an earliest Paleogene age cannot be ruled out. We explore the implications of this age assignment, and additionally describe two new mammal species from the same genus from Naskal.
The Deccan volcanism of India, representing one of the largest flood basalt provinces of the world, has attracted wider attention in recent years because of its supposed role in the mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K/Pg) boundary. In this context, flora and fauna recovered from the sedimentary beds deposited immediately before the initiation of Deccan volcanism (infratrappean beds) and those deposited during quiescent stages of volcanism (intertrappean beds) assume great significance in understanding the effects of the volcanism on contemporary biota, biogeographic origins and distribution of different taxonomic groups, and the role of volcanism in K/Pg boundary mass extinction. In this paper, a detailed review of the research done on these aspects in the last 4 years is presented.
During the last two decades, work carried out in the Eocene lignite sequences of Rajasthan and Gujarat has thrown considerable light on the terrestrial biotas during the drift of India and radically changed concepts regarding how the Indian plate was populated, the issues of cosmopolitanism and endemism, and the nature of the mixed sal-dominated forested community that supported a diverse mammalian fauna. While Madagascar and Australia, India’s erstwhile Gondwanan neighbours, supported highly endemic faunas, the biota of India shows strong affinities with Africa, Madagascar, Europe, and North America.
