LiveHistory India has started a wonderful outreach initiative, highlighting India's geological heritage. They invited me to talk about Deccan Volcanism. I spoke about how it all began, the physiography, places of interest, and the fossil bearing intertrappean sediments and their value in understanding ecology and broader patterns of extinction and recovery spanning the mass extinction that occured 66 million years ago.
This was recorded a couple of weeks ago, and it is now online. The original recording was about 40 minutes, but it has been edited and the video is 17 minutes long. Subtitles are in Hindi.
Permanent Link- Deccan Volcanism And Its Various Aspects
LiveHistory has put out more such videos with other Indian geologists.
1) India's Fossil Heritage- Dr. Sunil Bajpai
2) Markers of Earth's Formation in India- Dr. Pushpendra Ranawat
Hope you enjoy my talk!
During visit to Mahabaleshwar, it was fascinating to see the different volcanic layers in mountains. Sir, how should we think about the erosions that have taken place since formation of deccan plateau. Is it more to do with rains or winds etc. How are those cliffs remained unaffected but nearby regions felled. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThe plateau has been dissected by streams and rivers carving out valleys. Rock is weathered due to action of water and plant roots and the loose material gets removed, eventually fragmenting the landscape into mesas, and pinnacles and isolated hills and spurs. Regarding the Western Ghat cliffs, they too are being eroded by slabs of rocks splitting along cracks and cleaving away. It is thought that millions of years ago the Western Ghat escarpment was located 10's of km to the west, and has retreated eastwards since.
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