Keystones in East Gondwana breakup: provenance and palaeontology of sedimentary strata from East Indiaman Ridge, eastern Indian Ocean

In 2011 sedimentary rocks were recovered from submarine mountains in the deep eastern Indian Ocean, and are investigated here for the first time. Using integrated palaeontological and geochronological techniques, the rocks were determined to be of mid-Cretaceous age (~100 million years old) and contained a number of fossil species new to science, with strong biotic connections to other fossils around the Indian Ocean of a similar age. Also investigated was the origin of the sediments, and connections were found between the knolls and mountain-building events from the assembly of the supercontinent of Gondwana.