Ridge is an undersea volcanic mountain range that runs 3,000 miles south
from the Bay of Bengal,India.It formed when the Indian plate passed over a
hotspot as it continued drifting toward Asia.The massive outpourings of car-
bon dioxide–laden lava might have created the extraordinary warm climate of
the Paleocene that sparked the evolution of the mammals.
Continental rifting contemporary with the Deccan Traps eruptions
began separating Greenland from Norway and North America. The rifting
poured out great flood basalts across eastern Greenland, northwestern Britain,
northern Ireland, and the Faeroe Islands between Britain and Iceland. The
island of ice is itself an expression of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where massive
floods of basalt formed a huge volcanic plateau that rose above sea level about
16 million years ago.
Evidence of substantial explosive volcanism lies in an extensive region
from the South Atlantic to Antarctica.The Kerguelen Plateau located north of
Antarctica is the world’s largest submerged volcanic plateau. It originated from
Figure 178Blue whales
are the largest animals on
Earth.TERTIARY MAMMALS