Indian Shield: Precambrian Evolution and Phanerozoic Reconstitution

India

Prologue

The book Indian Shield: Precambrian Evolution and Phanerozoic Reconstitution depicts precisely what is indicated in the title itself. Whereas in the first part we tried to provide a comprehensive geological account of the evolution of the Precambrian Indian Shield, the second part discusses the different post-Precambrian processes that caused reconstitution of the Indian Shield changing its pristine shape, size, and constitution into that of the present-day Indian Subcontinent, a geomorphic terrain comprising countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. The complete geological history of the changeover is as spectacular as the temporal span of the two events. The evolutionary history of the Indian Shield covered a protracted span of about 3000 million years. By contrast, the period of reconstitution seems to have taken a little over 500 million years.

This book discusses the regional geology of the terrain in terms of the history of evolution of the Crust, describing how the Precambrian Shield evolved from a stable continental region to a tectonically unstable zone marked by frequent high-intensity earthquakes in a totally continental setting. It is a comprehensive and well-illustrated readable account of the history of growth and evolution of the Indian Subcontinent.

The strength of the book is the illustrations, both line drawings and photographs/images, used to supplement the text. Many illustrations mainly the photographs and images were drawn from different parts of the Indian Subcontinent in order to familiarize readers with the rocks and features of the terrain. This, we believed, would enhance the understanding of the subject we dealt with in the book.

An important point we would like to focus is that many terms and nomenclatures used in geology are derived from the names of common objects or features we are familiar with like ‘crust’, ‘mantle’, ‘core’, ‘plate’, ‘shield’, ‘platform’, and ‘trap’. In order to avoid confusion in the mind of common readers whenever such common nouns are used for specific geological features, these are written with capitalized first letter. In addition, the text has been supplemented with ‘boxes’, providing additional information that is usually provided in footnotes.

Scripting a book like this is truly an arduous task. But we feel fortunate to have received help from innumerable friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and many others whom we requested for support. But before anyone else, we must thank Mukesh Suthar for drafting a large number of line drawings and figures, with utmost fineness and care, making them scientifically very useful documents. We also extend our gratitude to all those who have extended their helping hand in various ways in our book-writing project. The list is long that includes Manoranjan Mohanty, Sisir Mondal, H. N. Bhattacharya, Sarbani Patranabis-Deb, Dilip Saha, A. N. Sarkar, Sanjib Sarkar, Alokesh Chatterjee, Erfan Mondal, N. V. Chalapathi Rao, P. R. Golani, Surjaram Jakhar, Harsh Bhu, Indrani Roy, L. S. Chamyal, Om Bhargava, Rajneesh Bhutani, Debjani Roy, Indrajit Roy, J. Ganguly, V. S. Kale, Ikramul Hasan Sakil, Y. Sheedhar Murthy, Saibal Gupta, M. Jayananda, Adhir Basu, Raymond Duraiswami, Kamal Kant Sharma, N. K. Chauhan, S. K. Haldar, Arun Vyas, G. R. Ravindra Kumar, T. R. K. Chetty, C. Leelanandam, R. H. Sawkar, Jonali Medhi, Pranjali Kakoti, Bidyananda M., S. A. Sameeni, Sukanta Dey, Santosh Kumar, T. K. Biswal, Ashutosh Pandey, Mukund Sharma, Anupendu Chatterjee, Asima Saikia, Surya Prakash Singh, Vinod Singh, Sadhana M Chatterjee, B. P. Singh, and Rachit Parihar. Our sincere apologies to those whom we forgot to acknowledge for their help.

And finally, we individually acknowledge the personal helps and comfort provided by our dear family members during the process of scripting the book.

Ashit Baran Roy; Ritesh Purohit

Part 1

Indian Shield: Concept and Perspective

Chapter 1

Concept of Indian Shield: Evolution and Reconstitution

Abstract

Traditionally, the triangular-shaped Peninsular India is described as the Indian Shield. Geological information, however, suggests that the Precambrian terrane of Peninsular India once constituted a part of much larger crustal block described as the ‘Greater India’. The pristine size of the Indian Shield is difficult to ascertain, but surely, it extended considerably in the north, as also in the southeast into Antarctica and in the southwest into Madagascar and Seychelles. The geological and geophysical data indicate that much of the Himalayan edifice is made of components sliced off from the Indian Shield during the late Cenozoic. Apart from that, the slicing of the Indian Shield due to the separation of Antarctica, Madagascar, and Seychelles during the late Phanerozoic helped in pruning the pristine size of the Indian Shield to that of Indian Subcontinent. Further, the process of fragmentation of the pristine Indian Shield into the shape and size of Indian Subcontinent during the different Phanerozoic (post-Precambrian) events has also grossly altered the geological, geomorphic, and geophysical characters of the terrain known to us as Indian Subcontinent.

Keywords

Cretaceous-Eocene Plume impingements; Greater India; Indian Shield; Jurassic break-up of Gondwanaland; Phanerozoic reconstitution of Indian Shield

1.1 The Concept of Indian Shield, Definition and Extent

A Shield is defined as a large area of exposed Precambrian terrane made dominantly of igneous and metamorphic rocks that remained tectonically stable since the youngest Precambrian. The oldest surviving rocks in the Shield areas of the world are generally as old as 3.5 billion years or even more. The youngest rocks on the other hand are those that evolved before the onset of Cambrian. Barring some minor cratonic deformations, the Shield area rocks have presumably remained free from any major tectonic/orogenic deformation during the latter ‘post-Precambrian’ Phanerozoic Eon.

Box 1.1

The term Shield used here is the English translation of the original German word ‘Shild’ by H.B.C. Sollas (Suess, 1901). The Canadian Shield is considered a model example of Shield in the world today. The term ‘Shield’ itself is derived from the outline of the spatial extent of the Canadian Shield, which is quite similar to the shape of armour used by ancient warriors to protect their bodies.

Traditionally, the triangular-shaped Precambrian terrane of the southern Indian Peninsula is described as a Shield. The term ‘Indian Shield’ that receives wide reference in literatures does not truly fulfil the shape criteria implied in the definition of Shield. But even assuming that the shape criterion needs not be a necessary constraint, the available geological information, however, suggests that the Precambrian terrane of Indian Peninsula was once a part of much larger crustal block that evolved as a Shield like the Canadian or some other Shield areas of the world. The concept of ‘Greater India’ appeared to have emerged from such an understanding about nine decades ago (Argand, 1924).

Box 1.2

The term ‘terrane’ is used following the definition given in Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, to simply describe a series of related rock formations or an area having a preponderance of a particular rock or rock groups. On the other hand, the term ‘terrain’ is used for a geographical ground or a piece of ground, especially with reference to its physical character.

The pristine size of this Precambrian crustal block that evolved as Indian Shield is difficult to ascertain because of the fact that a considerable part of it in the north has undergone extensive reconstitution during the ‘Continent-Continent’ collision that led to the growth of the Himalayas during the late Cenozoic time. The geological and geophysical data from the Himalayas also provide evidence that much of its edifice is made of components sliced off from the Indian Shield (Qureshy, 1969; Qureshy and Kumar, 1992; Warsi and Molnar, 1977). The concept is ingrained in the expression ‘extrapeninsular rocks’ used for all the ancient Precambrian rocks that constitute the youngest mountain belt, the Himalayas by the late 18th-century to early 19th-century geologists of the Geological Survey of India (Medlicott and Blandford, 1879–1881).

Several attempts have been made trying to reconstruct at least partially the true spatial extent (or the size) of the Indian Shield in its northern part. Though they differ in detail, the central strand in all these models is that the pristine Indian Precambrian crustal block constituting the Indian Shield had an extension varying between 500 and 950 km (Ali and Aitchison, 2008) in the north of the Himalayan Frontal Thrust (the southernmost base of the Himalayas, Valdiya, 1998). These estimates are compatible with some of the suggested geodynamic and geophysically derived models depicting the subducted Indian Lithosphere beneath Tibet and the estimates of the Himalayan shortening (DeCelles et al., 2002; Dewey et al., 1989; Le Fort, 1975; Molnar and Tapponnier, 1975; Searle et al., 1987; Virdi, 1987; Valdiya, 1984; Warsi and Molnar, 1977).

Apart from its reconstitution along the northern part, the slicing of the Indian Shield due to the separation of Antarctica in the southeast and Madagascar and Seychelles islands in the southwest during the late Phanerozoic has also added further complications in reconstructing the pristine size and shape of the Indian Shield prior to its decimation during the late Phanerozoic (Roy, 2004).

There are studies suggesting Indo-Antarctic connection based on the correlation of granulite belts of the two regions (Yoshida et al., 1992; Sen et al., 1995; Sengupta et al., 1999; Dasgupta and Sengupta, 2003; Bhadra et al., 2004; Gupta et al., 2005; Kelly et al., 2002). Such a correlation implies that the boundary of the Indian Shield does not end at the eastern margin of the Eastern Ghats Granulite Belt but extends far into East Antarctica. However, because of the lack of geological information, it is impossible even to guess what could even vaguely be the actual eastern boundary of the granulite belt in Antarctica (placing Antarctica against the present-day India).

Like the granulite belt of Eastern Ghats Granulite Belt and its continuity into the East Antarctica, the Southern Granulite Belt along with Sri Lanka and Madagascar formed a continuous Precambrian terrane in the south and southwest of Peninsular India (Harris et al., 1994; Jayananda and Peucat, 1996; Kröner et al., 1991; Radhakrishna et al., 1994, 1999; Storey et al., 1995; Torsvik et al., 2000; Veeraswamy and Raval, 2004; Yoshida et al., 1992). This suggests the extension of ‘Greater Indian Shield’ much beyond the boundary of the southern and southeastern peninsular India.

1.2 From Indian Shield to Indian Subcontinent: Story of Phanerozoic Reconstitution

The history of geological evolution of the Indian Shield is quite long and complex and, broadly speaking, took place in two stages. The first stage covered the entire Precambrian, which was the period of its growth and eventual cratonization. In the second stage of its evolution during the ‘post-Precambrian’ Phanerozoic phase, the cratonized Indian Shield underwent repeated reconstitution, finally shaping into the present-day ‘Indian continental block’, known as Indian Subcontinent.

Several Phanerozoic (post-Precambrian) geological events not only facilitated in changing the shape and size of the pristine Indian Shield but also have grossly altered its geological, geomorphological, and geophysical characters (Roy, 2004). These are the following:

1.Pan-African magmatism during 550 ± 50 Ma

2.Lower Palaeozoic ‘shelf-sea’-type basin development

3.Late Palaeozoic opening of the Gondwana basins

4.Jurassic break-up of Gondwanaland at ~ 165 Ma

5.Plume impingements during Cretaceous-Eocene

6.Himalayan collision and related orogeny, and

7.Postcollision tectonics and seismicity

The major Crust-building events that caused break-up and reconstitution of the pristine Precambrian Crust during the Phanerozoic are linked with three global bench-mark events (Roy, 2004): (i) Gondwana break-up at ~ 165 Ma ago, (ii) Plume impingements under the Indian Lithosphere during Cretaceous and Eocene (Fig. 1.1), and (iii) Himalayan-collision-related orogeny between ~ 55 and ~ 45 Ma (Fig. 1.2). The net result is the emergence of the landmass forming a distinctive geographic entity, the Indian Subcontinent. The almost entire Subcontinent’s boundary in the north is bordered by the Himalayas and its associated branches in the northwest and in the southeast (Fig. 1.3).

Fig. 1.1 Fragmentation of the Precambrian crustal block constituted of India, Antarctica, and Madagascar during Plume outbursts. Possible position of Plumes, indicating the age of outburst. Kg, Kerguelen; M, Marion; Ru, Reunion. Reproduced from Raval and Veeraswamy (2003) with permission.

Fig. 1.2 Schematic illustration showing evolution of Himalaya through upthrusting of slices of the northern part of the Indian Shield during the process of ‘continental collision’. ITSZ, Indus-Tsangpo Suture Zone.

Fig. 1.3 The satellite imagery indicating three physical divisions of the Indian Subcontinent. Modified from Google Earth image.

Apart from the fragmentation of the pristine Indian Shield to the shape and size of Indian Subcontinent (Fig. 1.3), the different (post-Precambrian) Phanerozoic events have also grossly altered the geological, geomorphic, and geophysical characters of the terrain. The oldest reconstitution-related event was in the form of intrusion of alkali granite and syenite and syenodiorite having ‘A’-type anorogenic character. This phase of magmatic activity centring around 500 ± 50 Ma broadly shows a near peripheral concentration virtually defining the boundaries of the Indian Subcontinent (partly including Madagascar) is popularly known as Pan-African events in India (Roy, 1999a, 1999b,2004; Valdiya, 1993). Some Shear Zones have reportedly developed in the Southern Granulite Belt in the Kerala region of southern Peninsula.

Reports of Cambrian fossil-bearing beds in the Salt Range region are indications of the earliest marine shelf deposits in the northwestern part of the Subcontinent. Scattered occurrence of lower Palaeozoic fossil-bearing marine sediments also occurs in the northwest of the Kashmir Valley, which continue for some distance into the Liddar Valley around Pahelgam east of Srinagar and in the Spiti Valley in the Tethys Himalayas. Continuity of these fossil-bearing lower Palaeozoic rocks is not traceable further east of this. Records of continuity of sedimentation in these basins during the Ordovician and Silurian are, however, quite equivocal, although both the periods are represented by fossils.

After a break in sedimentation of about 200 Ma between the Ordovician and the early Permian, the deposition of sediments in the Indian Subcontinent started with the formation of tillites and glacial boulder beds in close association with Permian marine beds. This was accompanied by the deposition of fluvial and fluviolacustrine sediments in linear intracontinental rift basins. These sediments, along with the intercalated plant remains that ultimately turned into coal seams, constitute the Gondwana Supergroup.

The Gondwana sedimentation, which began in the Permian, continued until the Lower Jurassic. The next major global event that had a major effect on the Indian continental block was the break-up of Gondwana at around 165 Ma. The initial separation resulted in marine incursions and deposition of sediments in the northwestern Rajasthan and in the Kachchh region of Gujarat along WNW-ESE trending rift basins. The deposition of continental sediments, which had earlier stopped in different Gondwana basins before the Lower Jurassic, was resumed at least in certain cases. The Gondwana break-up event was also responsible for the development of arrays of fracture systems in the Indian continental block. Geomorphologically expressed as Lineaments, these features developed either as a new set of ruptures or as a reactivation of old tectonic structures. The newly emerged fracture system helped in shaping the geomorphologic and geophysical character of the Indian Crust in a variety of ways.

As the Indian continental block along with attached parts of Madagascar, Seychelles, and Antarctica moved northwards following the dismemberment of the Gondwana Supercontinent, it was affected successively by the outbursts of four ‘Plume heads’ centred at Marion, Reunion, Crozet, and Kerguelen Islands. The manifestations of the Crozet Plume outbursts are virtually unknown. The Marion Plume outbursts resulted in the separation of Madagascar from the Indian continental block at around 88–90 Ma. Evidence for this comes from the occurrence of acid and mafic rocks of similar age in different parts of central and north Kerala, St. Mary’s Island off the Karnataka coast, and also Madagascar. The Rajmahal Traps, the Sylhet Traps, and also those that underlie the Bengal Basin are the manifestations of Kerguelen Plume activities during 117 ± 1 Ma. The Plume that triggered the successive separation of Antarctica from the Indian continental block induced Cretaceous marine ingress, both in the southeastern part of the Peninsula and in the southeast of the Bengal Basin. Record of another Plume outburst around 80/82 Ma linked with the 85° East Ridge in Bay of Bengal has been correlated with opening of the Bengal Basin (Roy and Chatterjee, 2015). Plume outbursts have grossly affected the shaping of the Indian Shield as indicated in Fig. 1.1, apart from the opening of new basins.

Deposition of shelf facies sediments was resumed during the Carboniferous in zones of marine incursions along intracratonic rift basins that had developed in the Salt Range and in the Kashmir region. The deposition in some basins continued until the Triassic. There are records of contemporary volcanism in the Pir Panjal Range and in other places in the east. Both marine and continental sediments can be correlated with those of the Gondwana deposits which occur in parts of Nepal and Sikkim Himalayas. Continuous sedimentation from the Cambrian to the Eocene with a number of breaks is recorded in the Tethys belt. Fossil records from different parts of this belt indicate that the extent of these breaks was not of uniform duration everywhere. The closure of the Tethys Ocean by the end of Eocene caused a brief pause in sedimentation, which was resumed by around mid-Miocene in two different basins. One in the north opened as a major intermontane (Back Arc) basin in the Suture Zone, leading to the deposition of the Indus Group. The Siwalik Group was deposited in the southern foreland basin that developed in front of the rising Himalayas from around 18 Ma.

Most remarkable reconstitution of the Indian Shield is noted along the northern margin when the Himalayas emerged as grand collisional mountain incorporating considerable part of Indian Shield elements (Figs. 1.2 and 1.3).

The Himalayas represent a classic example of Continent-Continent collision. Palaeomagnetic data indicate that the initiation of the continental collision had started at equatorial latitudes, resulting in the progressive suturing from the Paleocene in the northwestern Himalayas to the Eocene in the eastern Himalayas. Continued convergence and indentation of the Indian continental block with southern Asia (or Tibet) up to the Early Miocene resulted in the doubling of the crustal thickness over a large region in the Himalayas, Pamir-Hindu Kush, and Tibet. The total area of thickened Crust may account for about 2000 km of crustal shortening in the entire orogen. As to the origin of the Himalayan Arc, palaeomagnetic observations seem to favour a steady-state model of formation of the arcuate bending of the mountain ranges due to late Cenozoic anticlockwise rotational underthrusting of the Indian continental block beneath the Tibetan Plateau after the latest Miocene.

A unique feature of the Himalayas is their crustal thickness, which rises from about 35 km in the Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plain to between 65 and 80 km over the Higher Himalayas. The last Himalayan upheaval at around 1.7 Ma caused shifting of depocentres to the south, to build up the flood plains of the Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plain formed over the linear zone of subsidence south of the Himalayan Front. While the closure of Tethys marked the end of sedimentation in the north, marine shelf sedimentation continued both along the eastern and western margins of the Indian continental block, in the Naga Hills and Arakan Yoma in the east and the Sulaiman and Kirthar Ranges in the west. Sedimentation in these basins, which began in the Eocene, continued at least until the Oligocene. The earliest Himalayan deformation coincided with the final closure of Tethys at around 50 Ma, affecting the rocks on either side of the Suture Zone. There was a distinct southward polarity of deformation across the Tethyan region to the Higher Himalayan Crystalline Complex. A series of south-directed recumbent folds and thrusts was produced in the Higher Himalayas, resulting in thickening of the Crust with the attendant Barrovian-type metamorphism, anatexis, and generation of leucogranites. The southward transmission of the thrust nappes by the Main Central Thrust continued until around 22 Ma (Atlos et al., 2004). This was also the time when the Barrovian metamorphic isograds underwent inversion. Almost simultaneously with the piling up of the fold-thrust nappes in the Higher Himalayas, the Indus Molasse Basin in the north and the Siwalik Molasse Basin in the south developed as rapidly subsiding troughs. As in a model of ‘piggyback’ thrusting, the southward transmission of the fold-thrust nappes, which were initially along the Main Central Thrust, was later shifted to the Main Boundary Thrust in the south. The Himalayan Frontal Thrust that overrides the recent sediments was the latest dislocation in the form of an ‘upthrust’, and evolved during the Himalayan tectonism (Valdiya, 1998).

The Quaternary geology, which began with the waning phase of the Siwalik sedimentation, came to an end with the most recent upheaval of the Himalayas. The period is known for unique sedimentation process, geomorphic changes marking attainment of great heights in some locales, active tectonics, and associated seismicity. The subsiding depocentres had by then shifted to the south of the Himalayan domain and ultimately evolved as the huge flat plain known as the Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plain. Geographically, the Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plain also includes the narrow basin of the Brahmaputra River in the east and in the Thar Desert (along with the North Gujarat Plain) in the west. The alluvial sediments over the entire Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plain belt range in thickness between 400 and 800 m, with a maximum of about 6 km along the edge of the Himalayas. The belt is divided into a number of subbasins by several submerged ridges (basement highs) lying across it. Quaternary sediments outside the Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plain occur in the Narmada and Tapti Basins in Peninsular India along the western coastlines, and in the Bengal Basin in the east (Roy and Chatterjee, 2015). Thick laterite formations (some of which contain rich bauxite deposits) were produced during this time in parts of Central India, Eastern Ghats, and Konkan coasts in the Western Ghats. The Thar Desert in the east of Indus Basin had a fluvial prehistory, and its formation is linked with the establishment of the monsoon system over the Subcontinent by the mid-Pleistocene, with the high rising Aravalli Mountains producing the rain shadow zone to its west. The saline lakes that occur throughout the entire desert region were formed by the segmentation and blocking of river channels due to Neotectonic movements (Roy, 1999b). The Quaternary tectonic movements caused spectacular geomorphic changes in the entire Subcontinent, primarily through the movements along the fault-bounded blocks. Movement along rigid blocks caused pronounced geomorphic changes like formation of horst-type mountain (Mt. Abu and Nilgiri Hills), rift grabens (Narmada Basin), drainage disorganization, migration and extinction of Vedic Saraswati (Roy and Jakhar, 2001) and the repeated changes in the course of the rivers in the Bengal Basin, and many other features attributed to neotectonism. Movements are continuing. The spectacular landform changes during this last period of geological history and describes archetypal examples of tectonic geomorphology vis-à-vis palaeoseismicity. On the other hand, the Rann of Kutch in Northern Gujarat has the records of repeated regional uplift and subsidence during historical times (Roy et al., 2013). The development of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta Complex (also known as the Sundarban Delta) is a very important geological landform feature, which evolved in three stages of tectonically influenced deltaic sedimentation processes during the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene.

In summary, the Crust of the Indian Subcontinent bears records of the evolutionary history of the Precambrian Shield, which evolved (geophysical speaking) as a ‘Stable Continental Region’, and gradually turned into a tectonically unstable zone marked by frequent high-intensity earthquake.

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Chapter 2

Indian Subcontinent: Geomorphic and Geophysical Traits

Abstract

The Indian Subcontinent constitutes a distinctive geographic entity that can be divided into three geomorphic provinces: (a) the Indian Peninsula, (b) the Himalayas, and (c) the Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plains. The Indian Peninsula is a triangular-shaped landscape of ancient landmass with record of a prolonged history of erosion, denudation, and resurgent tectonic activities. The present-day geomorphic characteristics of the entire terrain have resulted because of more recent block uplift-type tectonic activities. Evidence of ancient gently rolling, almost featureless ‘peneplain’ surfaces marking the top of upland areas like plateaus and mountains provides proofs of a prolonged period of denudation reaching the base level of erosion much before its elevation to the mountainous height. The Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plains are the youngest geomorphic unit that evolved as a foreland basin in the frontal region of the rising Himalayas. The Himalayan mountain range is divided axially into six morphotectonic units, each showing a distinctive lithostratigraphic, tectonic, and geomorphic (mainly topographic) characteristics and evolutionary history. The geophysical characteristics of the Indian Subcontinent provide clear evidences of reconstitution of the Indian Shield simultaneously with the pruning of the pristine Precambrian Indian Shield with the formation of the present-day Indian Subcontinent.

Keywords

Bouguer gravity anomaly pattern; Himalayas; Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plains; Indian Peninsula; Indus-Ganga drainage divide; Tectonic geomorphology

2.1 Geomorphic Characteristics of Indian Subcontinent

It is the common practice to discuss the physiography of a terrain before describing the geology of the region in detail. This is done merely to provide a first-hand account of the terrain that exposes different types of lithology or more precisely the lithological formations that formed over a long period of geological time. Traditionally, the term physiography is used to imply the broad, all-comprehensive aspects of physical geology including the structure (implying landform types), relief, and drainage pattern. Geomorphology, on the other hand, emphasizes on geomorphologic processes and landform patterns and their origin and expressions of