Format: ORAL

Gaurav Srivastava1, Harshita Bhatia1, Su Tao2,3, Sadanand1, R.C. Mehrotra1

1 Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeoscience, 53 University Road, Lucknow-226007, India 2 CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303, China 3 State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation & Institute of Sedimentary Geology, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China

The voyage of the Indian plate from the southern to the northern hemisphere took ~150 million years and experienced varied types of climate due to changing insolation at different palaeolatitudes. This makes the biota of the Indian plate unique and a perfect natural laboratory that offers a peculiar opportunity to understand the vegetation-climate relationship during the late CretaceousPaleogene. During this journey, India acted as a biotic ferry and facilitated the migration of biota from Africa to Asia. Besides this, India also acted as a homeland for several biota such as Ipomoea of Convolvulaceae from the late Paleocene, Olea of Oleaceae, Eucalyptus of Myrtaceae, and Burseraceae from the MaastrichtianDanian sediments of Deccan Intertrappean beds. The plant fossil data compelled to believe that orders such as Sapindales, Myrtales, Solanales, and Lamiales have roots in east Gondwanaland. Moreover, the climatic reconstruction based on leaf physiognomy and nearest living relative methodologies suggests a warm and humid climate with seasonal rainfall during the entire journey of the Indian plate. The leaf morphological traits of fossils and modern forests also inferred an Indonesian-Australian type of monsoon during the Late CretaceousPaleogene.