20,000 Days In The Life Of A Clam

My Whatsapp profile description says, "what's a million years here and there".

It is a tongue in cheek acknowledgment of the vast spans of time geologists often have to contend with. If I am studying a rock that formed more than a billion years ago, a 5 to 10 million year uncertainty in nailing down its exact time of formation is acceptable. Uncertainty in estimating the time of formation may occur due to our as yet not so perfect understanding of the decay rate of various radioactive isotopes being used for dating, or due to limits of sensitivity of the instruments measuring the radioactive isotopes in the mineral. We are making great strides in measurement techniques with a 0.1 % accuracy now achievable. 

Sedimentary rocks are harder to date than igneous rocks since minerals with radioactive elements rarely form in them at the time of their deposition (some limestones and black shales are exceptions). Often, using some indirect methods we can bracket their maximum and minimum age. Take the example of the Alwar Group sedimentary rocks which occur in the northern Aravalli mountains in Rajasthan. They are estimated to have been deposited sometime between 2.1 billion years ago and 1.8 billion years ago, an uncertainty of 300 million years! We know from our understanding of sediment accumulation processes that deposition was not uniformly spread out over the 300 million years. Rather, the sequence of sediments would have been deposited in discrete pulses lasting 10 to 20 million years, separated by long phases of non-deposition. 

Amazingly, even though we don't know exactly when during the 300 million year interval these sediments came to be deposited, we can track fairly accurately what was happening then on a daily basis. Some strata of the Alwar Group are of shallow marine origin. As the daily tide flooded in and ebbed, a thin layer of sand was deposited during each of these high energy phases. During the slack phase in between, a thin layer of mud was deposited. Stacks of these tidal bundles made of a sand and mud couplet record the passage of daily tides. Observing the stacking pattern closely reveals even more details. Sets of bundles of thicker sand-mud couplets alternate with sets of thinner bundles. Each set formed during alternating spring (thick layers) and neep tide (thin layers) cycles. 

We can interpret the ancient record by comparing the patterns with those forming today in different settings. The principle "present is the key to the past" is used with some caution, but it works well in this case.

Such tidal rhythmites are fairly common in the geologic record. The pictures to the left is a section of a core from  Cretaceous age sediments laid down in an estuary. The sedimentary section is made up of sets of thicker silt layers capped by a darker mud layer, overlain by a set of thinner silt and mud couplets. Each silt layer represents deposition during the flood or ebb tide. During the slack period, stirred up organic rich mud settled down. Again, we don't know the exact age of the rock to a certainty of few hundred thousand years, but we can track daily events. Image source: G. Shanmugan; AAPG Bulletin v. 84, 2000.

Speaking of tides, the earth's rotation is slowing down due to tidal friction. Marine organisms like corals, brachiopods, and clams build a calcium carbonate skeleton to house their soft tissues. Their shell grows by a daily addition of a thin mineral layer. Geologists have studied the pattern of skeleton growth of Paleozoic corals. Besides daily growth bands, they can identify seasons too, as corals lay down thicker bands during the dry season and thinner bands during the wet phase. The number of days in the year are estimated by counting the number of daily bands in each season. It turns out that there were about 420 days in a year during the early and middle Silurian (between 443 million to 419 million years ago). By middle Devonian (roughly 370 million years ago), some 50 million years later, the number of days had reduced to about 410. Using bivalve shells, scientists estimate that there were 370 days in a year by Late Cretaceous times (about 80 to 70 million years ago). 

There are other examples closer to our own existence on earth of natural rhythms being preserved in rock. Geologists and climate experts routinely use mineral bands in cave stalagmites to understand variations in rainfall. A recent study by Gayatri Kathayat and colleagues from Uttarakhand, North India, reveals details of the course of Indian monsoons over thousands of years, mapping dry and wet phases lasting few centuries each. Despite an uncertainty of a few decades in the absolute age of each layer, it gives us a broad picture of climate change through the Holocene. 

We accept the fuzziness of our estimates of the age of an event while being able to sharply resolve the changes taking place in that cloud of uncertainty.

I could have named this post "Ode to Laminae", an appreciation of thin layers that form in tune with earth cycles and which preserve in their layering valuable information on ancient tides, earth moon dynamics, changing of seasons, and longer term climate change.  I just thought the title of the post and the paper it refers to is better click bait. 

Sometime in the Late Miocene (about 10 million years ago, what's a few tens of thousands of years here and there) a giant clam living on the western margin of the Makassar Strait (Indonesia) built a shell with daily growth increments. I will post the entire abstract of the paper below so you can get an idea of the details of ocean conditions scientists can tease out today with sophisticated instrumentation.  

 Iris Arndt et.al., 20,000 days in the life of a giant clam reveal late Miocene tropical climate variability.

Giant clams (Tridacna) are well-suited archives for studying past climates at (sub-)seasonal timescales, even in ‘deep-time’ due to their high preservation potential. They are fast growing (mm-cm/year), live several decades and build large aragonitic shells with seasonal to daily growth increments. Here we present a multi-proxy record of a late Miocene Tridacna that grew on the western margin of the Makassar Strait (Indonesia). By analysing daily elemental cycle lengths using our recently developed Python script Daydacna, we build an internal age model, which indicates that our record spans 20,916 ± 1220 days (2 SD), i.e. ∼57 ± 3 years. Our temporally resolved dataset of elemental ratios (El/Ca at sub-daily resolution) and stable oxygen and carbon isotopes (δ18O and δ13C at seasonal to weekly resolution) was complemented by dual clumped isotope measurements, which reveal that the shell grew in isotopic equilibrium with seawater. The corresponding Δ47 value yields a temperature of 27.9 ± 2.4 °C (2 SE) from which we calculate a mean oxygen isotopic composition of late Miocene tropical seawater of −0.43 ± 0.50 ‰. In our multi-decadal high temporal resolution records, we found multi-annual, seasonal and daily cycles as well as multi-day extreme weather events. We hypothesise that the multi-annual cycles (slightly above three years) might reflect global climate phenomena like ENSO, with the more clearly preserved yearly cycles indicating regional changes of water inflow into the reef, which together impact the local isotopic composition of water, temperature and nutrient availability. In addition, our chronology indicates that twice a year a rainy and cloudy season, presumably related to the passing of the ITCZ, affected light availability and primary productivity in the reef, reflected in decreased shell growth rates. Finally, we find irregularly occurring extreme weather events likely connected to heavy precipitation events that led to increased runoff, high turbidity, and possibly reduced temperatures in the reef.

Tell me geology isn't the coolest field of study.

Readings: Earth's Ice, Neanderthal Women, Indian Monsoons

Some good stuff from the past few weeks.

1) How much of the Earth's Ice is Melting? Sid Perkins writes about the variety of methods of estimating ice loss from the high latitudes. These methods are showing where and how much melting is taking place, in turn, helping scientists make predictions of future sea level rise. The overall scenario is rather gloomy. 

2) The Lives of Neanderthal Women. "Archaeology is no exception to biases against women’s interests across science and the humanities". Archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Skykes expertly constructs a picture of what the lives of Neanderthal women might have been like.

3) Indian Monsoon Across Millennia. Stalagmites from a cave in Meghalaya, NE India are giving paleoclimatologists information about monsoon variability over a thousand years. Their geochemistry points to periodic deadly droughts that coincide with phases of major social and political turmoil in India. Paper authors Gayatri Kathayat and Ashish Sinha describe their research. 

 

Links: Indian Monsoon, Hominin Footprints, Copper Mining

 Few links from past few weeks:

1) Rethinking the Indian Monsoons - This is a cracking good talk on the Sandip Roy Show with Dr. Sulochana Gadgil, meteorologist and an authority on the Indian monsoons. Dr. Gadgil talks about her career researching the monsoons. She elegantly explains the common misconceptions about its origins, pointing out the changes in monsoon patterns that have taken place over the past couple of decades, the difficulties in constructing accurate computer models and in predicting the future behavior of this complex phenomenon. She also draws an intriguing connection between variation in rainfall and crop yields. Drought years have lower yields, but there are no commensurate gains with excessive rain. There is also some advice on making Indian agriculture more resilient to climate change. All this interesting science is mixed with some delightful vignettes of her personal life too. Dr. Sulochana Gadgil is married to the well known ecologist Dr. Madhav Gadgil.  Exceptional interview! 

2) Multiple Bipedal Hominin Species 3.6  million years ago- A good write up of a reassessment of long forgotten set of footprints, from Laetoli, Tanzania. Scientists made new casts, developed digital reconstructions and compared them with a range of creatures. It looks like besides the famous Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), another hominin species walking with a different gait coexisted in this area.

3) Copper Mining of the Future- Renewable energy infrastructure will require a lot of copper. Many times more than what we are mining now. Maybe, instead of blasting copper rich rock in giant open pit mines, we can suck out copper rich brines out of dormant volcanoes, like drilling for oil? Some speculation about this wild sounding idea. 

Konkan Road Trip Photos: Murud Dabhol Tural

Last week beginning Monday July 15th, I took a four day road trip to Konkan, India west coastal plains. We went first to the small village of Murud and then drove south via Dabhol to Tural highlands.

The phrase 'coastal plains' is something of a misnomer since between the high Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea there are hill ranges with altitudes reaching 50 m to 200 m ASL. Tural is a community living on one of these ranges. We stayed there in the family home of a friend.

The map below shows a portion of the Konkan region through which we traveled.

The region had come alive due to the monsoons, although that week we caught a small break in the rains. It did rain heavily in short bursts, but there were enough interludes to go for long walks and enjoy the sun too.

Some pictures of landscapes that we came across.

1) The coast near Murud. After a brutal summer, the feel of cool winds and sounds of monsoon waves crashing on the shore was very refreshing.

2) Lonely stretch of a shimmering beach near Murud.

3) Loading our car on to the ferry at Dabhol.

4) Colourful fishing boats at Dabhol jetty.

5) Continental erosion writ in mud! River Vashishti meets the Arabian Sea.

6) Rice fields in a quiet community in Tural highlands.

7) Tural highlands is capped by a flat surface.

8) This plateau cap is made up of iron rich laterite. It formed during late Miocene times (~10 million  years ago) by prolonged chemical weathering of the underlying basalt rock and pediment (layer of weathered rock debris) . The picture shows the hard laterite surface, which would have been a low lying peneplain in late Miocene times.

9) Subsequent to lateritization, the western margin (Konkan coastal region) underwent some uplift, resulting in the formation of a plateau or 'table land' as it is commonly called. As the land rose, invigorated streams cut into the laterite surface forming deeply entrenched channels.  The picture below shows a close up of the laterite plateau dissected by a dendritic stream network (blue arrows).

10) The evolution of the Konkan coastal region from a low lying undulating surface undergoing lateritization, to an uplifted and dissected plateau is depicted in the schematic below.

Source: Evolution of Laterite in Goa: Mike Widdowson  2009

11) The laterite is a commonly used building material in this region. Small quarries pockmark these highlands. The picture shows large bricks of laterite. The plateau cap is hard laterite that can't be cut into regular brick shaped pieces. Below this crust though is a softer iron rich soil. This semi indurated material is cut into brick shapes and left to dry. It hardens upon dehydration into a usable stone.

12) We took long walks in cool lush forest patches.

13) Deep in the forest we visited my friend's family temple, a hidden jewel with a spring fed bath. These temples act like a social glue, bringing families and communities together on religious and other occasions.

14) On the way back via Kumbharli Ghat we caught sight of the majestic Western Ghat Escarpment.
 

until next time! 

Stalactites And Other Calc Tufa Deposits Along Bageshwar Shama Road, Kumaon Himalaya

Traveling from Bageshwar to Shama, in Kumaon Uttarakhand, I came across a wondrous calc tufa deposit about a kilometer south of Kapkot village.

 The map below shows Bageshwar and Kapkot along Route 37. (Permanent Link).



Calc Tufa are calcium carbonate deposits which form on land in a subaerial environment. They are made up of the minerals calcite and, less commonly, aragonite. The most familiar of calcium carbonate deposits are sea floor and beach accumulations of shells and skeletons of marine organisms. Upon burial and hardening they turn into limestones. In the Proterozoic, before animals evolved the ability to biomineralize, vast thicknesses of limestones formed in the oceans by inorganic and bacterially mediated precipitation of calcium carbonate. Limestones that form in saline as well as fresh water lakes are also known.

Calc Tufa forms in the vicinity of springs, waterfalls, along river banks, caves and along hill slopes. They have a chalky texture, porous fabric and organic looking shapes. This is a result of calcium carbonate encrusting microbial, algal and moss colonies that inhabit these settings. Associated with these porous friable looking forms are more denser crystalline deposits. These are stalactites and various types of laminated and globular crusts. They are collectively called speleothems. They form generally in a cave setting by abiogenic precipitation from thin films of supersaturated water. This particular deposit containing both tufa and speleothems was along a steep hill slope with large cavities. The substrate rocks are the Mesoproterozoic age Deoban limestone and dolostones (made up of mineral dolomite). They are estimated to be around 1.5- 1.6 billion years old.

All along the exposure the rocks were shattered by prominent fracture zones. Rain water is weakly acidic. As it falls and moves through the cracks and fractures in these rocks it dissolves the minerals calcite and dolomite, becoming enriched in dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2) and calcium.  The partial pressure of CO2 (a measure of dissolved CO2 concentration) in this groundwater is more than the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere. When groundwater enters a cave or emerges on a hill slope as a spring discharge, the lower partial pressure of CO2 in this open setting causes a degassing of CO2 from the groundwater. This results in the pH of the water to increase slightly, which in turn causes supersaturation of calcium carbonate in solution. Precipitation of calcium carbonate then begins on the cave walls and roof and on the hill slopes. It is possible that removal of CO2 by microbial photosynthesis may also be playing a role in triggering precipitation.

These tufa deposits occur at many places along the Bageshwar to Shama road. We finally stopped for a closer look at a largish looking deposit about a kilometer south of Kapkot. This was strictly road side geology on my part. We spent about half an hour at the deposit and so I am not presenting any detailed analysis or insights regarding this feature.

This is a complex deposit made up of varied types of tufa. We managed to photograph some beautiful calc tufa morphologies which I am posting below. My thanks to Pushkaraj Apte ( @pushkarajapte ) for contributing many of the photographs.

Lets get an idea of the size of the deposit. That's me, standing in front of the large cavern. You can see stalactites in the background.

 A peek inside the large cavity. It is about 3 meters in height and about 4 meters in width. I could have easily stood inside it. However, I did not enter it, fearing I would break some delicate mineral deposits which have formed on the floor of the cave.

Speleothems

Stalactites 1: The most striking of the formations are these stalactites. They range from thick columnar forms (1) which are more than a meter in length to smaller centimeter long thin delicate drips (2). The cave is damp. There is a thin film of water covering these columns suggesting ongoing mineral precipitation and growth of the stalactites. The floor of the cavern was also encrusted with deposits and partially covered with tufa debris.

 Stalactites 2: Along the hill slopes, exposed Deoban carbonate strata form ledges. Stalactites are growing on the undersides of these ledges. The bigger ones are about 1-2 feet in length.

 Botryoids:  At places botryoidal clusters (cave grapes) are seen. These hang from the roof (1) and accrete away from walls (2). They form by either radial or concentric growth of calcite (or aragonite) from a nucleation site. Each botryoid is about a centimeter or so in diameter.

Thin Platy Crusts: These thin (cm scale)delicate layers likely form in shallow films or pools of stagnant water on the floor of the cavity.

Flowstones?: These banded crusts  have formed on a slope from flowing water and likely represent abiogenic precipitation of calcite (flowstones). Alternatively they could be stromatolitic crusts formed by precipitation of calcite atop microbial sheaths and mats.

Calc Tufa:

Phytohermal Tufa: These are calcified moss deposits (a foot or so in height) which are formed on the floor of the cavity. They preserve the bushy morphology of the moss colonies. Calcite encrusted and eventually entirely replaced the moss colonies, turning them into fossilized organic structures.

Microhermal Tufa or Phytohermal Tufa: The thin tube like structures (few cm in length) of this calc tufa deposit suggests that it formed by mineral encrustation of filamentous algae or bacterial colonies. However, I cannot be sure. This too could be a moss colony.

Spongiform Tufa: Massive looking with dispersed holes. Such structures from by mineral encrusting organic matter (moss, microbial mats) draping the hillsides. The open spaces between the organic matter and decay of vegetation gives the deposit a sponge like texture. Some larger cavities (about 6 inches across) are lined with layered mineral deposits.

I found this broken piece along the road side next to the deposit. It is made up of small globular aggregates and columns which have accreted upon a substrate of spongiform tufa.

In this transverse section you can see clearly the calcium carbonate layers that have built up the column.

A cross section of the larger stalactites will also reveal its layered nature. Stalactites with such growth layers are of importance in reconstructing past climates. The oxygen in the calcite (CaCO3) provides the clue. Variations in the ratio of the two isotopes of oxygen (O18/O16) which are bound up in calcite are indicators of differences in the strength of rainfall. The lighter isotope (O16) is preferentially retained in the vapor phase. During phases of weak monsoons or drought, rain becomes enriched in the heavier isotope (O18). Calcite layers precipitated from this water will be enriched in the heavier isotope. In contrast, during strong monsoon phases, rain and groundwater becomes relatively enriched in the lighter isotope. As a result, calcite layers will inherit a 'lighter' oxygen isotope signal.

For the Indian subcontinent, reconstruction of the past variability of Asian monsoons going back hundreds to thousands of years, are based on precious few data points, spread rather sparsely across India. Recently, Gayatri Kathayat and colleagues published a study of Indian monsoon history over the past 5700 years based on the oxygen isotope record of cave stalactites from Sahiya in Uttarkhand, located about 200 km WNW of where we were. Judging by the size of some of the stalactites, I am guessing that deposition at this Kapkot site has been going on for a few hundred years at least. I wonder if this deposit can be a new paleo climate data source.

I did have another intriguing thought. Is the profusion of calc tufa deposits along road cuts in this region just a coincidence? Is it possible that blasting and cutting the hill side for building the road enhanced fractures and triggered collapse of blocks, resulting in the formation of caverns, and creating conditions favorable for calc tufa precipitation?   If so, then this deposit may be at most a hundred years old. Wild!

5700 Year High Resolution Record Of Indian Monsoon From Uttarakhand Cave Deposit

..continuing on the topic of environmental changes and Harappan Civilization. Gayatri Kathayat and colleagues have teased out an intra-decadal record of variability of Indian monsoons from a cave deposit in Uttarakhand.  This they did by measuring the O18/O16 ratio in the mineral calcite (CaCO3) which grew incrementally to form a speleothem. The lighter isotope of oxygen is preferentially retained in the vapour phase. Less and more amounts of rainfall thus results in less or more amounts of O16 in rain and groundwater and eventually in the mineral calcite that precipitates from that groundwater. This is known as the amount effect. A chronology of speleothem growth was established using thorium 230 dating method.

The record for the past 5700 years is summarized in this figure. The time period of the growth and consolidation of urban Harappan society coincides with a period of accentuated monsoons.

Gayatri Kathayat et. al. 2017: The Indian monsoon variability and civilization changes in the Indian subcontinent

Here is their conclusion:

The hydroclimate conditions during the evolution and subsequent decline of the IVC have remained a subject of debate (for example, 9, 14–19). On the basis of the Sahiya d18Orecord, the Early and Mature Phases occurred during a fairly wet/warm and climatically stable period. The Mature Phase began around an abrupt intensification of the ISM at ~4550 yr BP (Fig. 3) and sustained for nearly ~700 years to ~3850 yr BP, corresponding with the late portion of the mid-Holocene Climate Optimum, during which the ISM reached its maximum over the past 5700 years. It is plausible that the optimum (warm/wet) climate might have allowed the civilization to develop a farming system with large and reliant agricultural surpluses, which in turn supports the development of cities.

Previous studies have attributed societal collapses in the Middle East and in the Indus Valley to a climate event, the so-called “4.2 ka BP event” (or ca. ~4.2–3.9 ka BP event) (15–21, 42–45). The 4.2 ka BP event in the Sahiya d18O record manifests as an interval of declining ISM strength, marked by a relatively higher-amplitude d18O variability and a slow speleothem growth rate, rather than as a singular prominent abrupt event (Fig. 2). A lack of an abrupt change in our record around the time is consistentwith the idea that the 4.2 ka event did not influence the Deurbanization Phase (14) in contrast to the more severe societal impact it had on the Old Kingdom in Egypt and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia (42–45). 

Some commentators have already pointed out that this sample is well removed from the Harappan realm and we need to understand regional variation in monsoons before drawing any firm link between monsoon variability and Harappan civilization phases. In that context, let me put up another figure from a study of the Kotla Dahar lake sediments from Haryana. This site falls within the Harappan region. Yama Dixit and colleagues measured oxgyen isotopes of carbonate lake sediment as well as from gastropod (snail) shells. Take a look at the figure below.

Source: Yama Dixit et.al. 2014: Abrupt weakening of the summer monsoon in northwest India ~4100 yr ago

The variation in oxygen isotope ratios is due to variation in intensity of evaporation. Greater evaporation during dry phases results in the lake water getting enriched in the heavier isotope (the lighter isotope goes into the vapor phase more readily). Sediment and shells precipitated from this water will therefore get enriched in the heavier isotope during dry phases. Their sampling is coarser than the Sahiya study. But, if you look at the time period from around 5000 BP to around 3800 BP, there is no clear persistent trend towards monsoon intensification (should show up as a centuries long shift towards more negative dO18 values since evaporation will be less during wet phases). A fine resolution local record is needed to fill in the details and explain this apparent contradiction.

Finally, I came across a talk by archaeologist Shereen Ratnagar on environmental changes, river history and the Harappan Civilization. She does not like the theory that climate change was responsible for the decline of the Harappan Civilization. Instead, she prefers a social sciences approach, arguing that factors like the over-extension of empire and social dynamics need to be taken into account. Well, I am not sure that these are mutually exclusive. Civilizations may be in a phase of political and social cohesiveness whereby they could prove resilient against environmental changes. In times where their capacity for collective action is weak for internal reasons of polity and demography, exogenous factors like climate change may trigger disruption and decline.

She spends a lot of time criticizing a study by Liviu Giosan and colleagues on the fluvial history of that region. That paper showed that during Harappan times there were no glacial rivers flowing in the region between Yamuna and the Indus. Ratnagar points out that there might have been tributaries of the Yamuna and overspill of the Sutlej that may have provided water to the channel of the Ghaggar river and so there was no severe water shortage. But Giosan's work has not claimed that! They too point out that higher rainfall in the Siwaliks would have kept the Ghaggar perennial through most of the urban Harappan phase. They find that sedimentation continued through the late Harappan phase as well. The study suggests that continued monsoon decline and drying resulted in migration away from the Ghaggar-Hakra belt. However, they don't argue for a direct link between abrupt climate change and civilization decline across the entire Harappan extent. Anyways, the talk is worth listening too, especially her analysis of the wonderful water management strategies at the Harappan age site of Dholavira in Kutch, Gujarat.

Here is the link to the video. 

Monsoon Trekking Season Is Here

I hereby declare the Deccan Volcanics Western Ghat 2015 monsoon trekking season officially open!

That picture is of the steep slopes of Fort Rajgad about an hour's drive from Pune, taken a couple of years ago.

Last year the geology highlight of my treks into the Deccan Basalt countryside was this dyke with horizontal columnar joints near the summit of Fort Ghangad.

Columnar joints are cooling cracks which develop perpendicular to the cooling surface. In lava flows, the cooling surface is mostly horizontal and so the result is vertically oriented, often hexagonal shaped columnar  joints.  In this case, the cooling surface was the near vertical contact between the intruding hot magma and the colder older lava flow. The cooling cracks therefore are horizontal.

I will be posting more pictures from this year's trekking season. The Western Ghats in the monsoon and the winter are a sight to savor!

Field Photos: A Trek To Tikona Fort

Come September I am heading out again in the Deccan Basalt landscapes. Last Saturday I went for a day trek to Tikona Fort, about an hour and half drive from Pune on the backwaters on the Pavana dam.

An interactive map of the Tikona Fort area


View Larger Map

Monsoon clouds hover over the summit

Field Photo: A Village In The Monsoons

Can monsoon magic get better than this?

A small village, flooded paddy fields, cool breeze, clouds and the majestic Deccan volcanics towering over..

Taken on way to Panchgani from Pasarani Ghat.