Remotely India: Bundelkhand Mafic Dikes and Quartz Veins

Remotely India #14

Do you see anything striking (pun intended) about this geologic map of the Bundelkhand craton?

Source: Sarada Mohanty 2023- Proterozoic Basins of the Bundelkhand Craton

Notice that the green lines are predominantly oriented in a NW-SE direction. The pink lines are predominantly striking NE-SW. These are magmatic and fluid intrusions into the Bundelkhand granitic crust. The green lines represent mafic dikes (Mg and Fe rich basaltic magma), and the pink lines represent quartz veins. 

The Bundelkhand craton is an Archean age block of continental crust. Like other Archean age terrains, it has a long history of magmatism, volcanism, and sedimentation. The oldest rocks, a suite of granitic rocks going by the term 'tonalite–trondhjemite–granodiorite', and associated volcanics and chemical sediments are as old as 3.4 billion years. Through the Archean the crust grew by repeated injections of magma. Voluminous magmatism petered out by around 2. 4 billion years ago with the formation of the Bundelkhand granodiorite batholith, an enormous subsurface body of congealed magma. Granodiorite is a calcium feldspar bearing variant of granite. This younger rock type covers most of the surface area of this terrain.

Geologic activity continued for hundred of millions of years after the emplacement of this batholith with the intrusion of these impressive dike swarms and quartz vein clusters.

Staying true to the objective of this series on Indian geology as seen from satellite imagery, the emphasis here will be on the field features of these intrusive bodies.

Giant Quartz Veins:

Locality- Northeast of Mauranipur, Uttar Pradesh.

The quartz vein stands out as a high long ridge. Steep sided blocks of quartz make up the spine of the ridge. Weathered boulders shed from the quartz vein have formed the surrounding slopes. This distinctive landform is instantly recognizable in the imagery as you explore this region.  

Locality: Southeast of Mohangarh, Madhya Pradesh.

Here you can observe the intrusive relationship between the giant quartz vein and the older Bundelkhand granite (BG) which crops up as low hills made up of a light toned fractured rock. The linear vein can be traced cutting across the host rock.

Locality: Southeast of Mauranipur, Uttar Pradesh.

At this location you can observe an unusual feature. Two quartz veins have split to form a tuning fork shaped geomorphic feature.

These quartz veins intruded the crust around 2.15 to 2 billion years ago. The quartz crystals contain bubbles of gas and minuscule amounts of liquid trapped inside them. They inform us about the temperature and pressure during precipitation of the crystals and about the salinity of the fluid. There are also tiny crystals of other hydrous minerals like chlorite and epidote found inside the quartz. These reveal the source of the fluid. Such studies conducted by Duttanjali Rout and colleagues identify two distinct sources of fluids involved in the formation of these veins. A hot moderate salinity fluid derived from the Bundelkhand granodiorite mixed with meteoric water percolation downwards through fractures. The deeper fluids were sourced from not more than 5 km in the subsurface.

A drop in the temperature and pressure of the rising silica saturated fluid as it encountered the colder meteoric water resulted in decrease of silica solubility and the precipitation of quartz. The giant quartz veins are the product of a vigorous Proterozoic geothermal system that lasted tens of millions of years. The researchers have drawn a comparison with Broadlands-Ohaaki geothermal system in Northland, New Zealand, and the Kakkonda geothermal system in NE Japan. Both are in granitic terrains and could be loose analogs for the processes in operation during the formation of the Bundelkhand quartz veins.  

There are differences in what we can observe in these ancient and modern systems. In the Proterozoic example, the surface expression of the silica rich geothermal system, the hot springs and geysers, have long since eroded away. We can study only the subsurface plumbing system. In the modern settings, the surface processes are apparent and the underground patterns of fluid flow have to be inferred. 

Mafic Dikes:

Locality- Northeast of Lalitput, Uttar Pradesh,

A NNW-SSE trending dike is exposed near Tera village. The surface expression of mafic dikes is very different from the quartz veins. The dikes weather away faster and are exposed as low relief hills with extensive boulder fields derived from the weathering of the dolerite rock. In the satellite imagery, you can see the dark toned nature of the boulders hinting at its mafic composition. Due to the spread of boulders around the dike, the width of the intrusion appears far more that its true width. 

Locality- Mahoba , Uttar Pradesh

An ENE-WSW trending mafic dike is surrounded by Mahoba town. As with the NW-SE trending cluster, these E-W trending intrusions also appear as dark toned low relief boulder strewn hills.

Locality- Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh.

This is a synoptic view of the E-W trending dike, captured by ISRO Cartosat. The white rectangle in the lower left of the image is the bounding area covered by the previous imagery. It is quite an extensive intrusion, and to the eastern end it can be seen cutting across outcrops of the Bundelkhand granite. 

Geochronologic work on these mafic dikes shows that the NW-SE trending dike swarm intruded around 1.9 to 1.8 billion years ago. The E-W trending group of dikes are much younger, dated to about 1.1 billion years ago. 

The geochemistry of these dikes point to an upper mantle source of the magma. The dikes are a variety of thoeliitic basalt, not too much different from the basalts of the Deccan Traps in Maharashtra. Unlike the shallow sourced fluid of the quartz veins, the source magma of the dikes was generated at least 50 km down in the mantle lithosphere.

The crisscrossing lines you see on a geologic map of the Bundelkhand craton are a record of geologic activity that continued long after voluminous granitic magmatism ended. In rare exposures, mafic dikes are seen cutting across quartz veins, indicating that they are the younger of the intrusives. Most of the geochronology data collected so far supports this field observation. Studies of the spatial patterns of the dikes and quartz veins too hint that they represent two independent deformation events. The formation of both these systems required extensive fracturing and faulting  of the crust by extensional forces. Geologists are still working out the reasons for these crustal disturbances. 

In the case of the quartz veins, the fracture systems tapped relatively shallow sources of heat and fluids. In the subsequent reactivation of the crust, much deeper fracture systems cutting across the crust tapped upper mantle sources of heat,  providing conduits for the passage of mafic magma to shallower crustal levels. 

These deep crust penetrating fractures and Proterozoic mafic dike swarms tell another story about the strength of the crust and the advent of plate tectonics, but that is fuel for another post!

I am having fun resurrecting my Remotely India series. Stay in touch for more explorations of Indian geology on this blog.

Remotely India: Chittagong Tripura Fold Belt

Remotely India #13

Did you know that the easternmost part of the Bengal delta is being compressed into folded hill ranges? These go by the name Chittagong Tripura Fold Belt (CTFB), also referred to by geologists as the Outer Indo Burman (Myanmar) Ranges.

Take a look at the annotated satellite image below. The CTFB appears as a series of north south oriented ridges and valleys, extending from northern Tripura to south of Cox Bazaar in Bangladesh. 

Structurally they are made up of strata folded into anticlines (upwarps) and synclines (downwarps). To the east, they are separated from the inner Indo Burman (Myanmar) Ranges (IBR) by the north south trending Kaladan Fault. The Chittagong Coastal Fault marks the westernmost boundary of this fold belt, although the sedimentary pile below the sea bed of the Bay of Bengal to the west is also deforming. The 'deformation front' of this terrain is therefore further to the west of the Coastal Fault. 

As you might have guessed, these fold belts are a result of the Indian tectonic plate converging with Asia. But the nature of tectonic plate interaction is different from the plate collision that formed the Himalaya. In the case of the Himalaya, the continental crust of the Indian plate has collided with the continental crust of the Asia plate. The lower part of the Indian continental crust has slid under Tibet while thick slices of the Indian upper crust have been thrust up by faults to form the different geologic units of the Himalaya. 

Tracing the mountain arc southwards from its bend around Arunachal Pradesh, a different type of tectonic plate interaction is unfolding. In the Himalaya collision zone the more buoyant continental crust is sliding at a shallow angle underneath Tibet, a process known as underplating. In contrast, the Indian tectonic plate along this eastern convergence zone is made up of denser oceanic crust. As a result, along the zone of contact with Asia, this dense plate is subducting or taking a deep dive at a steeper angle into the mantle. 

Another difference apparent from the surface structure is the presence of both vertical and sideways movement of crustal blocks. This occurs because the Indian plate is pressing into Asia at an angle. Oblique convergence results in thrust faulting wherein rocks are moved up along east sloping fault planes. Collision at an angle also causes blocks to slide past each other along strike slip faults.  

The IBR is an older mountain chain formed by the subduction of the Tethyan oceanic crust underneath the Asia plate and the smaller Myanmar plate. This process, initiated in the Late Cretaceous around 100 million  years ago, eventually led to the formation of a complex fold belt by mid Miocene times (15-20 million years ago). 

This fold belt is made up of deep sea sediments and fragments of the Tethyan oceanic plate. These rocks were subjected to very high pressures during mountain building. Sheared and fractured rock units occur in a melange made up of dismembered blocks of varied rock types juxtaposed by faults. Heat and high pressure acting on rocks rich in aluminum, calcium, iron, titanium, and magnesium has resulted in the formation of deposits of exquisite gemstones such as jade, rubies, sapphires, spinel, and peridote. The IBR is studded with precious stones!

By Miocene (~20 million  years ago) the IBR had emerged above sea level as elevated ranges and had started eroding. Sediments shed from these hills were deposited in delta and shallow marine environments of the Bengal Basin to the west. During continued subduction of the Indian plate, between 2-4 million  years ago, this thin skin of the crust made up of about 5 km of sediment was scraped off, faulted, and crumpled up to form the CTFB. Geologists call these scraped off wedges of sediments that form along subduction zones as 'áccretionary prisms'. 

Further to the south, the Andaman Islands is also an accretionary prism formed along the plate junction between India and Asia.

The deformation of the CFTB diminishes from the east to the west. There are two distinct structural domains of this belt. To the east is a more tightly folded belt known as the Eastern Highly Compressed Fold Thrust Zone. Towards the west, is the more open Western Fold Thrust Zone. The emergent part of this fold belt is bounded to the west by the Chittagong Coastal Fault. However, geophysical studies show that the strata below the Bay of Bengal sea bed is also being warped and can be considered part of a westward growing CTFB.

The annotated satellite image below is a close up of the CTFB and the IBR. The black line is the Kaladan Fault separating the two, but even without my annotation, the two terrains have a distinctly different appearance. The older IBR have been more deeply dissected by streams. They have an etched faceted texture. To the west, the younger ranges of the CTFB have a more uniform even texture. 

Finally, I just wanted to put up a structural cross section of the CTFB. The folded and faulted nature of the sedimentary strata is apparent, as is the difference between the more tightly folded eastern zone compared with the more open western domain. Source: Md. Sakawat Hossian et.al. 2022: Lithosphere.

Scientists study terrains like the Chittagong Tripura Fold Belt to understand the mechanical response of the crust to different types of tectonic plate interactions. There is an economic incentive too. The IBR with its precious stone deposits has long been a target of exploration. In the CTFB natural gas seepage has been observed at many places. Geologists are interested in understanding the subsurface structure to target search for hydrocarbon accumulations.

As always, exploring Indian geology from satellite imagery is fun and a great learning experience for me. Stay tuned for more such stories!

Geological Contacts: Angular Unconformity Kaladgi Basin

 Remotely India Series #12

Through the Proterozoic Eon, beginning around 2 billion years ago,  extensional forces acting on continental crust opened up several sedimentary basins across what is now peninsular India. Crustal blocks subsided along faults and these depressions filled in with sediments deposited in fluvial and shallow marine environments. These basins were long lived, some lasting for more than a billion years. 

Sedimentation was not continuous.  Pulses of sediment deposition were punctuated by long periods of non deposition. Tectonic movements deformed early deposited piles of sediment. They were uplifted and an extensive basin wide erosional surface formed.

There was then a renewed phase of basin development. Sediment of these successor basins were deposited on tilted and folded older strata. Commonly, these younger packages of sediments are relatively undeformed. They are preserved as mesas and plateaus made up of flat lying strata. This discordance in attitude between two sets of strata separated by a widespread erosion surface is known as an angular unconformity.

In this post I will highlight an angular unconformity from the Kaladgi Basin from north Karnataka, south India. I have used high resolution imagery from Indian Space Research Organization's Cartosat.  Imagery is available for browsing and download from ISRO's Bhuvan 2D web maps.

The first image shows the area around Ramdurg village. The multi-stage history of the basin is readily apparent. The light colored strata exposed along narrow ridges are folded, while the rust brown hills are made up of undeformed sediments. The light toned strata are quartzites of the Bagalkot Group. The brown sandstone which rest on the Bagalkot quartzites are the Badami Group. Standard annotations show the varying dip and strike of the folded Bagalkot sediments. The white cross in grey circle denotes horizontal Badami strata. 

Kaladgi Basin history has become clearer based on recent geochronologic work by Shilpa Patil Pillai, Kanchan Pande, and Vivek S.Kale. They infer that basin initiation occurred around 1.4 billion years ago. Sedimentation of the Bagalkot Group terminated by 1.2 billion years ago. Movement along major WNW-ESE and tranverse NNE-SSE to NE-SW trending faults deformed the Bagalkot sediments into a series of folds around 1.1 billion years ago. This was followed by uplift and erosion of these folded sediments. Deformation was accompanied by low grade metamorphism of these rocks.

The basin floor subsided again around 900 million years ago initiating deposition of the Badami Group of sediments. The famous cave temples of Badami have been cut out from the lower part of the Badami sedimentary sequence.

The next imagery is a good example on how to recognize the relative timing of deformation events. Arrows point to fracture sets in the Bagalkot quartzites. These lineaments do not extend into the Badami sediments implying that fracturing occurred during an earlier phase of deformation. 

Let's look at a location that shows the angular discordance between the Bagalkot and Badami sediments. This is near Shirur town, north of Badami.  The lighter toned steeply tilted Bagalkot sediments outcrop as E-W trending narrow ribbons, north of Budanagad village. The brown colored Badami sediments form a more extensive plateau. Since these strata are horizontal, the traces of bedding planes form concentric bands mimicking contour lines. 

The final location is just south of Ramdurg village. The unconformity here is a little harder to decipher, but you can make out the tilt of the light colored Bagalkot quartzites, annotated by the standard notation of strike and dip. The quartzites form triangular facets sloping eastwards. Like the previous example, the concentric bands of brown in the adjacent hill indicates that this is the overlying horizontally disposed Badami sandstone.

Many Proterozoic basins of India contain such unconformity bounded sequences. Some more classic examples come from the Chattisgarh, Cuddapah, and Vindhyan basins. These sequences from different basins were not deposited synchronously. Each basin has it own trajectory of sedimentation, deformation, and erosion. 

Detailed field mapping, supplemented by absolute dating of rocks wherever possible, is elucidating the complex poly-phase history of Indian Proterozoic sedimentary basins in the context of global continental breakup and reassembly. For arm chair geologists and enthusiasts, easily available web mapping technology makes it possible to join in the excitement of teasing out these terrain's many secrets hiding in plain sight.

Geological Contact: Sirohi Fold Belt And Erinpura Granite

One of  my favorite courses during graduate work in Pune was geological Remote Sensing. We focused a lot on visual interpretation of aerial photographs and satellite imagery. Lab work meant hours of poring over different areas of India and making preliminary geology maps based on observations of the landforms and rock structures visible from space. The rock composition, structure, and weathering patterns controls the surface expression of geological units. These are manifest on satellite imagery and on aerial photographs as differences in tone, texture, structural styles, and relief. 

I came across a nice example of the juxtaposition of two distinct geologic rock units just northeast of the town of Sirohi in Rajasthan. 

These two terrains made up of the Erinpura Granite and the Sirohi Group sediments are easily recognizable. 

The terrain west of the yellow line and isolated ribbons between the purple lines is made up of layered metamorphosed sedimentary rocks of the Sirohi Group. These sediments were deposited on the Erinpura Granite basement around 850 million years ago. Hard rock layers form northeast southwest oriented ridges with intervening valleys underlain by a softer lithology.  The texture appears fine and the ridge and valley terrain has a substantial vegetation cover. The rock layers can be traced as a series of folds. The Sirohi Group sediments were deformed and metamorphosed by 820 million years ago.

The Erinpura Granite represents magmatism that occurred around 900 million years ago.  Occurring mostly east of the yellow line, the granite also forms enclaves (orange outline) in the fold belt.

The granite appears as a light toned surface. It is massive body of rock, lacking the layering seen in the western sedimentary basin. The landform is a low elevation plain as compared to the Sirohi rocks.The rock has a coarse granular texture. Its surface has scant vegetation. Several lineaments (dark colored lines) are seen crisscrossing the granite body. These are fractures and dikes. Shrubs and trees growing along the fractures and dikes give them a darker appearance and make them stand out against the lighter granite body. The fracture sets have also controlled the local drainage. Several streams can be seen flowing along straight courses.

Below are two close up images of the contact zones between the two terrains. 

At this scale you can appreciate why the granite as a coarser texture in the synoptic imagery. The fracture systems has broken the granite in to a blocky surface. 

In this image below the Erinpura Granite occurs as an enclave surrounded by Sirohi metasedimentary rocks. 

And finally, a close up of structure controlled drainage in the Eripura Granite terrain. The fir tree like pattern, known as trellis drainage,  is due to streams flowing along orthogonal fracture sets. 

Geology mapping done. Now to visit Rajasthan for a field check! 

Remotely India: Structural Control On Drainage

 Remotely India #10

Check out this amazing example of fracture controlled stream flow. Follow blue arrows.

The stream originates on the steep west facing slopes of Tamhini Ghat (west of Pune) and flows a north westerly course in a NW-SE trending fracture, then makes an abrupt left turn and flows south west into a NE-SW trending fracture. It then exhibits a number of right angle turns. Finally, it turns sharply and flows north along a N-S trending fracture before joining the larger Kundalika river near Mhasewadi.

This area comprising the edge of the Deccan Volcanic Plateau and the coastal plain has been shattered by several fracture systems which formed due to tensile forces affecting the western margin of India during and post Deccan volcanism.

Take some time looking at this image above. You will see scores of small streams flowing along fractures and making sharp turns at fracture intersections. The geomorphology of this part of the Deccan Volcanic Province is a joy to explore.

Remotely India: Folding At Margins Of The Vindhyan Sedimentary Basin

Remotely India # 9 (a post series about landforms and geological structures imaged by remote sensing satellites).

This is a geology rich image!

Source: Rajasthan Tourism

It shows Gagron Fort in the Jhalawar district of Rajasthan. I came across it while watching a history show on EPIC channel. Looking at the steeply dipping strata I identified them as the metamorphosed and deformed Aravalli Group sediments of early Proterozoic age.

I then checked a geological map and realized I had gotten the stratigraphy completely wrong. These steeply dipping rocks belong to the mid-late Proterozoic Vindhyan Group of sediments.

There are two distinct categories of Proterozoic basins in India. There are the mobile belts. An example of a mobile belt is the Aravalli orogenic belt. As the name suggests, these basins formed as linear depressions at the margins of Archaean cratonic blocks. They are filled with volcano-sedimentary successions, intruded by granitic bodies and subjected to intense deformation and metamorphism during convergence and collision between different cratonic blocks. They are economically important. Lead, zinc, copper, iron ore is mined from various mobile belts. The Aravalli belt formed due to the collision between the Aravalli craton and the Bundelkhand craton. Sedimentation in the Aravalli basin was initiated around 2 billion years ago. Their deformation and metamorphism has been dated to around 1.7-1.6 billion years ago.

The second category of basins are the epicratonic basins, developed as either rift basins or foreland basins within cratonic blocks. Volcanic activity is mostly restricted to the early stages of basin evolution. Sedimentary successions are sandstones, shale and limestone. Collectively these are known as the 'Purana' (ancient) basins. They show very light to no metamorphism and relatively gentle deformation. Flat lying strata form mesas and plateaus in the interior of such basins. The degree of deformation usually increase at the basin margins. In proximity to basin margins faults, sediments are often spectacularly folded. The Vindhyan Basin is a 'Purana' style basin.

I am putting up a few examples of folding in Vindhyan Basin sediments. These range in age from about 1.7 billion to 650 million years.

The first one is the Jhalawar anticline in proximity to the Mukundara Fault. Fort Gagron was built  on the steep NE dipping limb made up of the Kaimur sandstones.

Mukundara Fault is an easterly directed thrust fault. See this cross section across the Jhalawar anticline.

Source: Rajeev Bhoj, Avdhesh Nautiyal and Rajesh Sharma 2011:  Regional Structural Style of Chambal Valley Vindhyan Basin, Rajasthan, India

This second example of folding is south and east of the famous fort at Chittorgarh. Lower Vindhyan Group sediments have been folded into N-S trending tight anticlines and synclines. 

This folded zone abuts the Great Boundary Fault which structurally juxtaposes the Bundelkhand Craton with the Aravalli Craton. The fault brings into contact the Aravalli mobile belt and the Vindhyan 'Purana' basin. The Great Boundary Fault is a NW dipping thrust fault (ref).

Finally, northeast of the previous location, also along the Great Boundary Fault in the vicinity of the town of Bundi are these folded Upper Vindhyan sediments. These are the sandstones and limestones of the Rewa and Bhander Group.

And below is a geological map of the region to give some context to these structures. The Great Boundary Fault and the Mukundara Fault are orthogonal to each other, testimony to differently oriented compressive forces  affecting the Vindhyan Basin.

Source: Rajeev Bhoj, Avdhesh Nautiyal and Rajesh Sharma 2011:  Regional Structural Style of Chambal Valley Vindhyan Basin, Rajasthan, India

Three distinct structural trends can be seen in this part of the Vindhyan Basin. A NE-SW trend of the Great Boundary Fault. A N-S trend of the tight folds south and east of Chittorgarh. And a NW-SE  trend of the Mukundara Fault and associated folds. The other major structural trend in the Vindhyan Basin is the E-W trend of  Narmada rift fault zone which forms the southern boundary of the basin.

All satellite images from the Indian Remote Sensing satellite Cartosat series, accessible through ISRO's web mapping application Bhuvan.

Cartosat 1 DEM- Two Strike Slip Faults

My two favorite strikes slip faults in India as rendered by Cartosat 1 Digital Elevation Model-

1) Yamuna Left Lateral Fault-

Source: Cartosat 1 DEM National Remote Sensing Center, ISRO

You can see that the Siwalik hills are breached by the Yamuna and dislocated in a left lateral sense, i.e. one would have to turn left to follow the narrow marker rock bed across the fault.

From a previous post on this fault-

Miocene onwards a thick wedge of fluvial sediments filled up a foreland basin that formed in front of rising thrust sheets uplifted along the active Main Boundary Thrust (MBT). That phase ended about 0.5 to 1 mya.

This fluvial wedge over the last half a million years has been deformed into the Siwalik mountains. These mountains form broad synclines and tight anticlines cut by north dipping thrust faults, a result of the continuing compression of the sediment wedge. The southernmost of these thrusts which brings into tectonic contact the anticlinal Frontal Range of the Siwaliks over the alluvial plains in called the Himalayan Frontal Thrust (HFT).

The HFT is broken into segments and the amount of displacement along these segments or thrust blocks is unequal. For example the blocks west of the Yamuna and east of the Ganga have moved southwards with an opposite sense of movement relative to the central block known as the Dun block. To view this, turn on labels and pan southeastwards in embeddable map below until the town of Haridwar where the Ganga enters the plains.

Thus the Yamuna fault has a left lateral sense of movement while the Ganga fault has a right lateral sense of movement. These faults can be thought of as lateral ramps of the HFT accommodating the displacement caused by the southwards movement of the HFT blocks. 

Structural considerations indicate that during the last 0.5 my there has been about 8 km of displacement along the Yamuna and Ganga faults, a slip rate of approx. 16 mm year. - See more at: http://suvratk.blogspot.in/2010/12/remotely-india-3-left-lateral-yamuna.html#sthash.H9K4tfrI.dpuf

 Miocene onwards a thick wedge of fluvial sediments filled up a foreland basin that formed in front of rising thrust sheets uplifted along the active Main Boundary Thrust (MBT). That phase ended about 0.5 to 1 mya.

This fluvial wedge over the last half a million years has been deformed into the Siwalik mountains. These mountains form broad synclines and tight anticlines cut by north dipping thrust faults, a result of the continuing compression of the sediment wedge. The southernmost of these thrusts which brings into tectonic contact the anticlinal Frontal Range of the Siwaliks over the alluvial plains in called the Himalayan Frontal Thrust (HFT).

The HFT is broken into segments and the amount of displacement along these segments or thrust blocks is unequal. For example the blocks west of the Yamuna and east of the Ganga have moved southwards with an opposite sense of movement relative to the central block known as the Dun block. To view this, turn on labels and pan southeastwards in embeddable map below until the town of Haridwar where the Ganga enters the plains.

Thus the Yamuna fault has a left lateral sense of movement while the Ganga fault has a right lateral sense of movement. These faults can be thought of as lateral ramps of the HFT accommodating the displacement caused by the southwards movement of the HFT blocks.

Structural considerations indicate that during the last 0.5 my there has been about 8 km of displacement along the Yamuna and Ganga faults, a slip rate of approx. 16 mm year.

The Digital  Elevation Model also brings out beautifully the Quaternary alluvial fans with tiers of river terraces deposited in the valley between the Siwaliks and the Lesser Himalayas and the intricate drainage on the southern slopes of the Siwalik frontal range.

2) Gani Kalava Fault-

This too has a left lateral movement and has a prolonged history of being reactived during different phases of sedimentation in the Proterozoic Cuddapah Basin of south India.  I  did my M.Sc dissertation on this area, concentrating on the asymmetric anticline with a gentler dipping southern limb and a nearly vertical dipping northern limb located south of Gani village.

Source: Cartosat 1 DEM, National  Remote Sensing Center, ISRO

From a previous post on this fault-

The feature is an ENE plunging asymmetric anticline with spectacular dip slopes of quartz arenites making up the southern limb of the fold and left-lateral movement along a regional fault steepening the northern limb of the fold. There is some copper mineralization along the fault. The Cuddapah basin is an intra-cratonic basin which was filled up in several depositional mega cycles. Sections of two of these mega cycles are exposed in this area. The older mega cycle comprising the Cuddapah subgroup is exposed in the core of the anticline. An angular unconformity separates the older cycle from the younger Kurnool cycle (sub group) which is exposed along the limbs.

Brown arrows shows the offset marker beds (grey arrows show sense of movement) of the oldest sedimentary formation of the Cuddapah basin, the early Proterozoic Gulcheru Quartzites and Vempalle limestones of the Papaghani Group. These lie unconformably on the Archean Peninsular  Gneiss which is the fawn colored peneplain in the left part of the DEM. The very distinct dip slopes of  the Gani anticline (south of Gani village) are made up of a much younger sedimentary unit, the Banganpalle  Quartzites of the Kurnool Group. They were deposited in energetic shallow seas, forming a vast sand shelf, wherein waves and currents winnowed out unstable minerals, leaving behind a nearly pure well sorted and rounded quartz sand. The quartz grains are polycyclic, meaning they show evidence of being derived by weathering of older sandstones, the most likely source being the Gulcheru Quartzites.

Remember this is a Digital Elevation Model,  same color means the same altitude range and not mineral composition.

Remotely India # 7: Mesozoic Domes Of The Kachchh Basin

Remotely India # 7

A recent paper in Current Science (open access) on the geomorphology and tectonics of domal structures in Mesozoic strata prompted me to resurrect this old series titled Remotely India. In these posts I put up a satellite image(s) of an interesting geological feature somewhere in India followed by a brief explanation.

Today's post is on the Kachchh basin in western India. In Mesozoic times this region was a long lasting marine basin in which hundred's of feet of sediments accumulated. Occasionally the sea withdrew and fluvial and lacustrine deposits formed. But most the sedimentary sequence represents marine conditions. Over much of the region the sedimentary strata are horizontal to very gently dipping in disposition indicating very little tectonic disturbance of the basin since the Mesozoic.

At places though these Mesozoic sedimentary rock has been upwarped into domes. These appear as a linear series of blisters in the landscape. The observation that they occur in a linear arrangement is significant and geologists have understood that these blisters and domes occur along mostly east-west trending faults. Map below show the geomorphological and tectonic elements of the region. Red cross is the town of Bhuj.

Source: Kachchh Mesozoic Domes, Current Science 

And this image below is of the Habo dome near the town of Bhuj.

Observations reveal that these domes show an antiformal structure with diverging dips i.e. beds (strata) bending or dipping outwards from the core area.

Here is a series of  domes (Dudhai domes) east of the town of Bhuj.

How did these structures form? Geologists reasoning is as follows: a) The domes don't have corresponding basin like structures, so they did not form through compressional forces buckling the crust into swells and depressions b) the domes occur in Mesozoic rocks on the uplifted blocks of faults but they are not found on the other side of the fault blocks. This suggests that the domes are not "drape folds" formed by vertical movement and adjustment of the sedimentary blanket during faulting. Also supporting the view that faulting did not form the domes is the observation that at places the domes are truncated by faults indicating that this type of structural disturbance occurred much later than the formation of the domes.

Image below shows a truncated dome north of the town of Bhuj

c) there is a close association of magmatic bodies of mafic and ultra-mafic composition with the domes. In some domes plug like magmatic bodies occur in the core of the domes. At places small dykes and stringers of magma are seen to dart from the main magmatic body into the sedimentary beds. This indicates that the magmatic bodies intruded the sedimentary rocks. Based on this the best explanation geologists feel is that these domes formed when magma rose through the crust and impinged the base of the Mesozoic sediments causing bending and doming of the rocks.

When did this occur?  Since Mesozoic times as Gondwanaland split apart into fragments forming the western margin of India, the Kachchh region has been subjected to extensional forces which resulted in several rift type basins forming there. East West trending faults and fracture systems are typical structural elements of this region since the mid Mesozoic.  Radiometric dating says the magmatic intrusions into these sedimentary rocks took place about 68 mya to 64 mya (million years ago).  This was just before and overlapping the Deccan volcanism in the Late Cretaceous which suggests that during magmatic episodes molten material was channelized along older fracture and fault systems of the Kuchchh region resulting in a localization of the domes along faults.

Topographic features, the undulations and swells and mountains that wrinkle the earth's crust form in the variety of ways. Classic orogenic mountains like the Himalayas form when tectonic plates collide and deform and thicken and lift up the earth's crust along thrust faults. Prolonged explosive outpouring of lava can form the beautiful yet deadly mountains like Vesuvius, Mount St. Helens and Mount Fuji. Yet, quieter outpouring of lava like the one experienced during Deccan volcanism can form enormous piles of lava. This pile can later be affected by gentler vertical movements of the crust coupled with differential erosion, forming a landscape of cliffs and gorges as seen in the Western Ghats... and sometimes magma ascends and pushes the crust upwards to form blisters like the domes of Kachchh. Coincidently, David Bressen has a blog post on the history of the idea of plate tectonics. Before this theory explained the origin of large mountain chains, the prevailing view was that mountains are blisters and bumps formed by magma pushing the crust from underneath..!!

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Remotely India # 6: Chambal River - Badlands ...And Bad Men n Women

Geology and Livelihoods - 8

In the alluvial Gangetic plains, the rivers that catch everyone's eye are the Yamuna and the Ganga with their source in the high Himalayas and their standing in Indian society as the holiest of India's many holy rivers.

But the alluvial Himalayan foreland is also fed by rivers originating in the Indian craton (continental crust formed in early earth history) on the high northern flanks of the Narmada rift zone. These cratonic rivers flow north northeastwards and join the Yamuna or Ganga.The map below shows Himalayan and Cratonic rivers flowing into the north Indian foreland basin.

Source: R.Sinha et al 2009

The Chambal is the largest of these cratonic rivers. From source to its confluence with the Yamuna it is about a 1000 km long. It flows over both the Deccan Basalts and Proterozoic Vindhyan strata and contributes significant amount of sediment to the foreland basin.

The Chambal river badlands is a late Pleistocene-Holocene degradational landscape. In the image below the badlands can be recognized by the closely spaced dendritic network of gullies. The location is just west of the town of Morena in Madhya Pradesh.

Rivers and their associated floodplains go through aggradational and degradational phases. In an aggradational phase the river is carrying a large sediment load and flooding results in deposition of this sediment in the flood affected areas. This periodic deposition builds up or aggrades the floodplain.

Conditions may change. For example during longer wet periods and increased rain intensity river discharge increases. Sediment is not deposited locally but is carried out of the system to the sea.  In these conditions rivers incise or cut into their own deposits. The river channel becomes situated in a deep valley detached from its floodplain. Starved of sediment, the floodplain degrades as erosion along the main channel and smaller streams cuts gully and ravines forming badlands.

Below is a pictorial representation of this process.

 Source: Gibling et al 2005

Sedimentological and stratigraphic analysis of facies and dating of sediment by Optical Stimulated Luminesence along the Ganga, Yamuna and some cratonic tributaries suggest (Ref) that in this region badland formation coincided with the intensification of the south west Indian monsoon at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum around 15 thousand years ago and likely continues today, amplified over the last couple of millenia by intense human reworking of the landscape.

Another mechanism that may initiate a phase of river incision is tectonic uplift and tilting of the region. Tectonic upwarp may steepen stream gradients increasing their erosive power. That mechanism has been invoked by some to explain phases of incision of the Yamuna and the Chambal. However many researchers have pointed out that late Pleistocene - Holocene river incision episodes in basins of varied tectonic settings from Nepal , Bangladesh and northern India all coinciding with monsoon resurgence points to a regional climatic control.

Ravined badlands border long stretches of the Chambal as seen in the image above but also occur along the Yamuna, Betwa and Sengur rivers. The incised main channel of the river and the ravines expose older sediment. In these older sediments, earlier degradational and aggradational episodes can be recognized and coincide with fluctuations in monsoon intensity interpreted from coeval Arabian sea cores containing variations in pollen abundance which records variation in terrestrial vegetation and planktonic foraminiferal abundance which records oceanic upwellings related to monsoonal circulation.

These badlands and incised channels of the Yamuna, Chambal and other smaller cratonic rivers have given geologists a priceless opportunity to study the interplay between fluvial processes and climatic changes mainly the influence of the Indian monsoon on sedimentary processes over the last hundred thousand years.

I am leading into a different topic for the rest of the post- a somewhat warped installment of my long running series Geology and livelihoods, the reason being that in the Chambal region for long centuries people have developed a parallel economy based on dacoity. Some of India's most infamous outlaws have operated from this region. Dongar-Baturi, Pana, Sultan, Man Singh, Amritlal, Lakhan, Gabbra and Putli Bai (the first documented women dacoit of the Chambal), Kallan and more recently the notorious Nirbhay Gujjar (in photo, source).. the list is long.

The reasons are many and the badlands and ravines play an important role through history. They are situated close to the power centers of ancient north India, Delhi and the kingdoms of Rajasthan. Rebels used to retreat and hide in its byzantine gullies and engage in guerrilla warfare. That metamorphosed over time to looting and making a living that way, a culture of highway banditry developed.

From ancient times to recent, people took to being outlaws for different reasons. Droughts which are common in this region drove many to desperation. A rigid caste system often ignited inter caste violence and initiated revenge cycles that lasted generations. The rugged terrain meant that farming land was scarce and land disputes escalated to murderous outbursts and often a point of no return. 

The background was always the gullied landscape in which the outlaws could escape and hide from their enemies and the law.

Annie Zaidi surveying this region has found out that dacoity has changed with the times. These days gangs earn a livelihood not by old fashioned looting and raids on villages and travelers but by kidnappings for ransom and protection rackets.

Geology influences this new economy too. At the fringes of the alluvial badlands outcrop Archean granites and gneisses, Proterozoic marbles, limestones and sandstones and the Deccan Basalts,all of which are extensively quarried, often illegally.

These quarries are in remote areas and gangs extort protection pay from owners in exchange of safety.

Chambal geology, both recent and ancient has sustained illegal livelihoods for centuries.

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See: Geology and livelihoods

Remotely India # 5: Lonar Crater

Move over Chicxulub Mexico of dinosaur extinction fame, move over Meteor Crater Arizona.. I've got my own meteorite crater right here in my backyard.

Okay... okay.. this crater didn't transform the planet, didn't disrupt ecosystems or cause mass extinctions.. but there it stands, a beautiful round hole punched in the earth.. testimony to the fragility and exposure of our planet to bombardments from space.

Lonar Crater is a small crater formed by the impact of a meteorite. It forms a 1.88 km diameter depression in the Deccan Basalts in eastern Maharashtra near the town of Aurangabad about 8-9 hours drive from Pune. There is a relief of about 135 meters from the rim to the surface of the lake. The image below is a rendering of the relief of the region produced by draping a satellite image over a digital elevation model.

Source: Maloof et al 2009

For years there was some uncertainty on whether this depression represented a collapsed volcanic cone or whether it is of impact origin. Meteorite fragments have not been found at Lonar. But there always were doubts about the volcanic origin since geomorphic features of the crater such as its excellent preservation, a very thin sediment cover in the crater lake and immature river incision features surrounding the crater suggested a much younger origin than the ancient Deccan Basalts.

Now detailed studies of the deformation of basalt flows in the crater walls and evidence of impact shock from the presence of maskelynite a glassy phase formed by shock conversion of plagioclase feldspar has put that debate to rest. Several types of glassy spherules show that the crater formed due to a meteorite impact.  Below is a geological map of the lonar crater which shows the distribution of the ejecta blanket. Series Q are Quaternary features: Qb - beach, Qe - ejecta, Qf - forest, Qh - histosol, Qi - irrigated alluvial fan, and Qt - talus. Series T represent basalt flow in the crater walls. Coordinate are in Universal Transverse Mercator Projection.

Source: Maloof et al 2009

Dating the crater using various methods had previously suggested an age ranging from 12 thousand years to 65 thousand years. A recent study by Maloof et al 2009 carbon dated soils preserved underneath the ejecta blankets. The dates indicate a very young maximum age of about 12 thousand years for the impact. On the other hand another recent study using Argon-Argon dating method on impact melt rock has suggested an age of about six hundred and fifty thousand years. The consensus though seems to be leaning towards a much younger age for the crater.

The crater has  received a lot of attention from geologists. Its importance lies in its very recent origin. High erosion rates on earth wipe away bits and pieces of any feature, many times making a detailed reconstruction of events impossible. In Lonar crater though, impact features are well preserved and have proved useful in understanding cratering mechanisms. Its location within a basaltic terrain makes it a good analogue for small impact craters on the moon and other rocky planets. 

Ecologically too the crater is a unique place. The lake has high salinity levels and hosts a variety of extremophile bacteria.


The Geological Survey of India protects the crater and its rim but not all of the ejecta blanket. Urbanization and agriculture are slowly destroying it.

Digital Elevation Model of Lonar Crater derived from GPS measurments:

Source: Maloof et al 2009

Remotely India # 4 : Piggyback Basins Within The Siwaliks

Growing mountains involve a thickening of the crust and this thickened crustal mass weighs down the lithosphere causing a moat like depression in front of the mountain range.

These depressions are called foreland basins and they get filled up by sediments derived by the erosion of the growing mountain belt. Foreland basins are regions of compressional stresses and this causes the crust to deform through folding and breakage along thrust faults. During foreland basin evolution as compression squeezes the sediment pile and the basement, folds and thrust systems propagate further and further onto the foreland deforming earlier deposited sediment into folds and cannabilizing that newly uplifted sediment to fill the active depocentre forming ahead of this deformation front.

Structurally these depressions are categorized as two types. A foredeep or a foreland basin that develops in front of the active thrust system. And a piggy back basin that develops on top of the active thrust sheet.

Since early Cenozoic the Indian plate has been pushing into the Asian continental crust. The result has been the rising Himalayan mountains and a foreland basin south of the ranges. From Miocene onwards to recent, parts of the Himalayan foreland basin has undergone a transition from being a foredeep fill developed in front of the Main Boundary Thrust to a piggy back basin developed on top of the active Himalayan Frontal Thrust. See figure to left which shows the progressive deformation of the foredeep sediment wedge. Source:Thakur V C and Pandey A K 2004.

The Siwalk Group is the sediment pile which filled up the basin that developed in front of the Main Boundary Thrust beginning around the Miocene. This foredeep basin sedimentation continued until around 0.5 mya. Then another pulse of compression caused the Siwalik sediment wedge to be uplifted and deformed into two large wrinkles or folds. One just southwards of  the Main Boundary Thrust along the Santaurgarh thrust and another much further southwards along the Himalayan Frontal Thrust,  a new thrust that splayed or peeled off from the Main Boundary Thrust.

The Himalayan Frontal Range is the youngest new wrinkle to be added to the Cenozoic foreland basin sediments.

There is a depression.. an intermontane valley between the two large wrinkles or anticlines that form the Siwalik ranges, a piggy back basin developed on top of the Himalayan Frontal Thrust sheet. This basin has been receiving sediment during the late Quaternary, for about the last few hundred thousand years from the deformed Siwaliks and the lesser Himalayas.

The Main Boundary and Himalayan Frontal Thrust sheet systems are seismically active and pose a serious threat to society. Evidence of several large earthquakes over the last thousand years have been recognized using structural features like fault traces, sag ponds, pressure ridges and offset alluvial terraces. As recent as 1905 the Kangra earthquake (~ 7.8 magnitude) occurred in the region between the Main Boundary Thrust and the Frontal Thrust.  The deformation of the Himalayas continues southwards and will keep incorporating new sediment into a growing mountain chain.

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Remotely India # 3: Left Lateral Yamuna Fault

One of India's great rivers, the Yamuna, leaves the Himalayas and comes rushing on to the plains through a great tear in the Himalayan frontal ranges of the Siwalik mountains.

That breach in the mountains is a dislocation along the Yamuna fault. The sense of movement is left lateral, which means if you are following a rock formation across the fault, you will have to turn left as you cross the fault to trace the same rock formation.

Miocene onwards a thick wedge of fluvial sediments filled up a foreland basin that formed in front of rising thrust sheets uplifted along the active Main Boundary Thrust (MBT). That phase ended about 0.5 to 1 mya.

This fluvial wedge over the last half a million years has been deformed into the Siwalik mountains. These mountains form broad synclines and tight anticlines cut by north dipping thrust faults, a result of the continuing compression of the sediment wedge. The southernmost of these thrusts which brings into tectonic contact the anticlinal Frontal Range of the Siwaliks over the alluvial plains in called the Himalayan Frontal Thrust (HFT).

The HFT is broken into segments and the amount of displacement along these segments or thrust blocks is unequal. For example the blocks west of the Yamuna and east of the Ganga have moved southwards with an opposite sense of movement relative to the central block known as the Dun block. To view this, turn on labels and pan southeastwards in embeddable map below until the town of Haridwar where the Ganga enters the plains.

Thus the Yamuna fault has a left lateral sense of movement while the Ganga fault has a right lateral sense of movement. These faults can be thought of as lateral ramps of the HFT accommodating the displacement caused by the southwards movement of the HFT blocks. 

Structural considerations indicate that during the last 0.5 my there has been about 8 km of displacement along the Yamuna and Ganga faults, a slip rate of approx. 16 mm year.

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Remotely India # 2: Dyke Swarms Of Northern Deccan Traps

Around Nandurbar in northern Maharashtra are spectacular outcrops of a dyke swarm intruding the Deccan volcanics.

Source: IRS-Resourcesat-1

 Models of Deccan volcanism envision that most the lava came out of vents and fissures localized along two major rift zones, the roughly east-west trending Narmada Tapi Satpura rift zone along which today the Narmada and Tapi rivers flow westwards and which initially developed in the Proterozoic but has been active intermittently since and the north-south trending West Coast rift zone which developed during the mid-late Cretaceous as India broke away from Madagascar around 90 mya. There are dyke clusters along these major rift zones and they are thought to be lava feeders, remnants of the pipes through which magma from deep magma chambers was brought up to the surface.

The dykes in the image belong to the Narmada rift zone cluster. They are mostly tholeiitic basalts in composition. Variations in chemical composition shows that the Deccan lava pile was built up through several major eruptive episodes. A comparison of this dyke cluster suggests that many of these dykes were likely feeders to the older and middle eruptive phases of the lave pile, although a feeder relationship with a lava flow is rarely seen in the field.

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Remotely India # 1: A New Series On Indian Geology

I'm experimenting with a new series. The idea is to put up a satellite image of an interesting geological feature from India along with a brief explanation. I'm going into this without much preparation. I have about 5 locations ready but will have to actively look for more features to put up.

Which imaging service should I use? Google Maps and Bing Maps are the easily accessible choices,  but in honor of India's Remote Sensing Program which has been a credit to the country, wherever possible I will be putting up an image from an Indian Remote Sensing Satellite as well. I'm going to be using the public domain web mapping service Bhuvan as the source of the images taken from Indian satellites. The resolution allowed for unrestricted use of imagery via services like Bhuvan is a maximum of 5.8 meters, and so I will supplement that with an embeddable Google Maps frame for higher resolution images and a more interactive experience.

The inaugural image is a sentimental choice from my first solo mapping project in the Proterozoic Cuddapah Basin of Andhra Pradesh, south India, located between the towns of Kurnool and Nandyal.

Gani Kalva Anticline

Source: Resourcesat 1

The feature is an ENE plunging asymmetric anticline with spectacular dip slopes of quartz arenites making up the southern limb of the fold and left-lateral movement along a regional fault steepening the northern limb of the fold. There is some copper mineralization along the fault. The Cuddapah basin is an intra-cratonic basin which was filled up in several depositional mega cycles. Sections of two of these mega cycles are exposed in this area. The older mega cycle comprising the Cuddapah subgroup is exposed in the core of the anticline. An angular unconformity separates the older cycle from the younger Kurnool cycle (sub group) which is exposed along the limbs.

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Posting will be on Tuesday but maybe not every Tuesday! Suggestions and recommendations welcome..