Grass phytoliths in surface sediments of the Sunderbans, India and their implications in reconstructing past deltaic environmental changes

Reliability of grass phytoliths for discriminating different deltaic sub-environments has been assessed on the modern surface sediments collected along the salinity gradient of the Sunderbans delta, India. It has been observed that grass phytolith assemblages can successfully distinguish different deltaic sub-environments especially the true mangrove zones from the mangrove associate and non-mangrove zones with minor overlaps, which further corroborated with the results of discriminant analysis (DA). Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) and redundancy analysis (RDA) performed on the surface grass phytolith data show that salinity is the most crucial environmental parameter influencing grass phytolith distribution in the deltaic sub-environments. The potential of modern grass phytolith data in reconstructing past deltaic environmental changes has been further assessed on a late Quaternary fossil phytolith spectra from the Sunderbans spanning a sedimentary record for the last ~13.6 ka. A true mangrove environment with discernible tidal influence has been revealed between 13.6 and 3.9 ka. Absence of true mangrove–indicator grass phytoliths between ~3.9 and 2.2 ka further suggests disappearance of mangrove vegetation from this part of the Sunderbans which might have recolonized during ~2.2–0.8 ka. A mangrove associated or non-mangrove environment with little or no tidal influence came into existence in the study area since 0.8 ka onwards. A comparison with some earlier records suggests that the present grass phytolith-based palaeoenvironmental data shows conformity with the past dynamics in mangrove ecosystem in the east coast of India in respect to relative sea level changes.