JOURNAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF INDIA Vol.78, October 2011, pp.

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Some Burning Questions Remaining Unanswered

K. S. VALDIYA
Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore 560 064 Email: ksvaldiya@gmail.com Abstract: Writing a book on the geodynamic evolution of India (Valdiya, 2010), which involved going through and perusing voluminous literature, I was confronted with many burning questions for which I could not find decisive answers. Maybe I missed the answers, or perhaps I failed to grasp and comprehend the logics of authors. I also felt that many very crucial problems of the evolutionary history of India await addressing squarely by the new generation of earth scientists. When the President of the Geological Society of India, Dr. Harsh Gupta, kindly invited me to speak at the Annual General Meeting of the Society in October 2010 I could not suppress my urge to voice my ignorance through some questions that tantalizingly tease me.

WAS IT COLLISION OR DOCKING OF INDIA WITH ASIA? The geological literature is replete with mentions and accounts of collision of India with Asia sometime between 50 Ma and 68 Ma (Fig.1). In all my writings I have myself described the phenomenon of coming together of India and Asia as a collision. But was it a collision? To a common man the word collision implies a violent impact, an accident occurring when something moving hits another. India converged towards Asia ever since it broke away from Africa. Just before it touched Asia, the speed of movement was 180195 mm/yr; and this rate slowed down to 45 mm/yr (Klootwijk et al. 1992), implying the resistance that the moving Indian plate encountered due to collision. To recapitulate, just before the coming together of the two continents the rate of movement of the Indian plate was 180195 mm/year (or 0.490.53 mm/day) and after that it decreased to 45 mm/yr (or 0.0200.022 mm/hour). When a continent moving at the rate of 0.49 to 0.53 mm/hour slams another continent, would that incident be called a collision? Is it not appropriate to call the event as the docking of India with Asia? WHEN DID THE DOCKING TAKE PLACE? As already stated, India was moving northwards at the rate of 18 to 19.5 cm/year just before the docking. Then suddenly the speed slowed down to 4.5 cm/yr around 55 million years ago (Klootwijk et al. 1992). The interpretation of global palaeomagnetic data has led some scholars to conclude that Indias movement abruptly decreased at

573 Ma (Acton, 1999). Most of the earth scientists subscribe to this view. If the timing of the collision is taken at 5550 Ma, then quite a few questions have to be answered. The fossils contained in the sedimentary rocks in the WaziristanKhurram region in northwestern Pakistan indicate that the docking of the northwestern edge of India with Asia took place nearly 65 million years ago (Beck et al. 1995; Zaman et al. 1999). In the east in Cuofiang area in southern Tibet, India touched Asia at about 68 Ma (Xiaoying et al. 1996). The Palaeocene Liuqu Conglomerate, representing fluvial deposits, occupies a tract entirely south of the AsiaIndia junction, implying that the welding of the two continents took place in the Later Cretaceous to Palaeocene time (Aichitson et al. 2002) In the Maastrichtian time (70-65 Ma), a large variety of vertebrate animals such as even-toed deers, turtles, crocodiles and fish made sudden appearance in the Murree sediments of the Kalakot area in Jammu, and these animals bear remarkable similarity with those of China, Mongolia, Siberia and Central Asia (Ranga Rao, 1971; Sahni and Kumar, 1974). Some taxa belonging to palaeryctid mammals, crocodiles, pelepatid frogs, alligators, charophyte Nemegtichara and ostracodes occurring in the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) formation of Central India show strong affinity bordering on identity with the contemporary forms of Mongolia and China (Sahni, 1984; Bhatia and Rana, 1984; Jaeger et al. 1989; Bhatia et al. 1990; Sahni and Bajpai, 1991; Bhatia et al. 1996).

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Fig.1. Upper: India converged towards Asia and its northwestern edge touched Asia. Inset shows a chain of volcanic islands, forming an arc between the two continents. Lower: The suturing of the island arc complex with the continents is explained by three models. (Based on various sources given in Valdiya, 2010).
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How come that non-marine assemblages of the Murrees of the Kalakot area in Jammu and also of the intertrappean beds at Asifabad and Takli in central India show remarkable identity at the specific level with the Maastrichtian fauna of Central Asia, Mongolia and China? What could be the reason for the remarkably strong affinity with the Indian faunal taxas with those of Asia in the Maastrichtian time? Unless a land bridge between Asia and India had formed in the early part of the Upper Cretaceous, there would not have been any immigration from Asia to India (Figure 1 upper). Why are we not seriously working on the problem of the landbridge of faunal immigration from Asia to India? Were there more than one land bridge? Why do we dare not or interested not to work on the northern edge of the Himalaya, particularly to find out where else were the land bridges formed? Even in the face of strong palaeontological evidence, we continue to accept the deduction based on palaeomagnetic testimony that India touched Asia around 50 55 Ma. Why are we hesitant to accept the fact that the docking and welding of India with Asia took place in the period 6568 Ma? It may be pointed out that the peak of the Deccan Volcanism occurred at 65.5 Ma. And there was persistent volcanic activity in this period all along the periphery of the Himalaya (Valdiya, 2010). Does it not imply that the stupendous volcanism that overwhelmed a large part of the Indian subcontinent was in some way related to the docking of India with Asia? PENINSULAR INDIA SLIDES UNDER THE HIMALAYA The Peninsular Indian crust bends down as it slides under the Himalaya (Fig.2). The rate of slip varies from 203 mm/ yr in the central sector to 10 mm/yr in the Salt Range sector in the west (Wesnousky et al. 1999; Lave and Avouac, 2000). The GPS measurements confirm the variable rate of slip (Figure 2 inset) from 1020 mm/yr in the Sikkim sector, 1018 mm/yr in the Uttarakhand sector to 1420 mm/yr in the western sector (Banerjee and Burgmann, 2001; Jade, 2005). Palaeoseismic studies indicate extensive rupturing of the crust in the immediate proximity south of the Himalayan Frontal Thrust/Fault in B.C. 400 and A.D. 260, 800, 1294,
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1423, 1500 and 1700 in the belt between the Ghagghar in the west and the Kumauni Kosi in the east (Wesnousky et al. 1999; Malik and Mathews, 2005; Senthil Kumar et al. 2006). In southern Nepal there was an event in A.D. 1100 (Lave et al. 2005). And in northern Bihar many earthquakes occurred sometime in 25,000 yr B.P., 5,300 yr B.P. and 1,700 yr B.P. (Sukhija et al. 2002). It is also known that the ground of the Indo-Gangetic Plain in northeastern Uttar Pradesh and adjoining Bihar (Fig.3 Upper) is sinking at the rate of 0.2 to 0.3 mm/yr as the Survey of India benchmarks show (Sinha and Jain, 1998). As a consequence, the rivers are migrating or shifting westwards in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, and eastwards in western Uttar Pradesh (see Valdiya, 2010 for references). The BengalBangladesh plains (Fig.3 Middle and Lower) is cut by a multiplicity of faults, which are active and causing sinking and uplift of the ground-surface as much as 30 m uplift in the Madhupur region. The loci of earthquakes are located along the active faults (see Valdiya, 2010 for references). If this is happening, why are we not studying in earnestness such geomorphological-structural changes as upwarping or bulging up and sagging or sinking of the ground, just south of the Himalayan Frontal Thrust all along its extent along the line where Peninsular India is underthrusting the Himalaya? Where are the structuralgeomorphic humps or domes developing, where are the sag ponds forming, and where are the lands becoming seriously water-logged or swampy? Where are rivers showing unambiguous signs of derangement or shifting of courses? Would it not be advisable to find out by geophysical means whether and where subsurface blind faults or blind folds are in the process of forming? THE LINEAMENTS The stupendous volume of lavas and volcaniclastic material emplaced 61 to 69 million years ago the Deccan Traps is related to the Reunion Hotspot (De, 1981). The passage of the Indian plate over this hotspot caused doming up of the western part of the Peninsular India and resultant thinning, stretching and rifting of the crust (Sheth, 1999). The stretching and rifting is evident from the swarms of parallel to sub-parallel dykes in the Konkan Belt and in the Tapi-Narmada rift valleys (Fig.4). The average thickness of dykes is 15 m, and on the average there are 7 dykes per kilometre along the Konkan and 2025 dykes/km in the TapiNarmada belt (Deshmukh and Sehgal, 1988). In a

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Fig.2. As the Indian shield (plate) slides under the Himalayan mobile belt which is subdivided into four contrasted terranes the terrane-defining thrusts became active time and again and with varying rate in different sectors (after Gansser, 1991). Inset: GPS measurements indicate northeasterly and easterly movement of India. The lengths of the arrows show the velocity, and their trends the direction of movement.

limited Rajpipla sector, the aggregate thickness of the dykes is more than 1.5 km. Imagine how much the Indian crust must have stretched when the dykes were emplaced! Although the dykes are believed to have served as feeders of the Deccan lavas, the passage of the lavas to dolerites of dykes is seen but rarely (Auden, 1949; Deshmukh and Sehgal, 1988). Why are we not looking for more sites for studying the passage of the dolerite dykes to the Deccan lavas? What is the nature of the transition in terms of mineralogy, texture and chemistry? One of the most significant features all along the Sahyadri, the Western Ghat and the KonkanKanara Malabar Coastal Belt is the multiplicity of the so-called

lineaments. They trend persistently NNWSSE to NWSE and NS (Figs. 4B, 7, 8 and 9). One would not dispute the contention that these lineaments are expressions of the stretching of the Indian crust as it rode over the Reunion Hotspot. Many of these lineaments are associated with hot springs (Figs.5 and 7) (Chadrasekharam, 1985; Shanker, 1989; Srinivasan, 2002). The large number of hot springs aligned parallel to the coast all along the West Coast in Konkan and Kanara, (to which may be attributed the high heat flow value varying from 51.54.6 to 1298.3 mW/M2 (Shanker, 1989), indicate not only the existence of faults, but also the fact that the majority of the faults reach great depths.
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Fig.3. Upper: Ground surface of northern Bihar and adjoining Uttar Pradesh is subsiding, resulting in progressive shifting of rivers and development of swamps and lakes due to impeded drainage. (from Sinha and Jain, 1998). Middle and Lower: Built of Later Quaternary and Holocene sediments, the BengalBangladesh plain is cut by a multiplicity of active faults. The section shows uplift of the ground along one of these faults (based on Morgan and McIntyre, 1959; Alam, 1996).
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Fig.4. The West Coast of India and the tract of NarmadaTapi valleys are characterized by swarms of dykestrending NNW/NSSE/S in the Konkan and E/ENEW/WSW in the NarmadaTapi valleys. (A) After Auden (1949). (B) and (C) after Deshmukh and Sehgal (1988).

Quite many of the lineaments and fractures are seismogenic (Fig.6). This is evident from the pattern of distribution of epicentres lying in their close proximity as seen in the MumbaiBassienPanvel sector (Fig.7 Inset) in the Konkan (Srinivasan, 2002; Raghu Kanth and Iyengar, 2006; Mohan et al. 2007), in the central part of the Sahyadri (Fig.8 Inset) in Karnataka (Sambandam et al. 1994; Valdiya, 2001a, b) and in central Kerala (Fig.9) (Rajendran and Rajendran, 1997; Rastogi, 2001; Singh and Mathai, 2004; Valdiya and Narayana, 2007). The great depth to which they extend, the earthquakes that they generate due to slipping on them at depth and the anomalous behaviour including ponding of the present rivers and streams on their crossing them implying reactivation (Kundu and Matan, 2000; Valdiya, 2001a, Valdiya and Narayana, 2007) together demonstrate unequivocally that the so-called lineaments are faults active faults related

to the bulging up of the western part of the Peninsular India and its stretching and rifting. Very significantly, the fault-plane mechanism solutions (Fig.6 inset) demonstrate without doubt that these lineaments are indeed strike-slip and normal faults (Rastogi, 1992). Why then we continue to describe them noncommitantly as lineaments? Why do we hesitate to call a spade a spade?

NATURE OF THE PALGHAT GAP The Sahyadri is a 1600 km long mountain range. How can one explain the nature of the Palghat Gap (Fig.12) which is 2530 km in width and 45300 m above the mean sea level in between two long and very high
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Fig.5. The tracts of swarms of parallel dykes in the West Coast as well as in the NarmadaTapi valleys, among others, are dotted with hot springs (from Shanker, 1989).

(>2000 m) mountain ranges, the Central Sahyadri and the Southern Sahyadri. Erosion alone cannot explain the development of this geomorphically spectacular and structurally peculiar gap. Considering the nature of the peculiarity of the structural design and lithological complexes within the Moyar
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BhavaniAttur Shear Zone in the north and the seismically active (Rajendran and Rajendran, 1996) PalghatCauvery Shear Zone in the south (Fig.12) and the very active nature of the faults dissecting the Sahyadri and coastal domains (Figs. 9 and 10 Upper) it has been suggested that the overstressed crust of the Indian shield in southern India broke along the reactivated reverse faults of the

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Fig.6. Epicentres of earthquakes of moderate to low magnitude occur all along the West Coast aligned parallel to or in close proximity of the lineaments (after Rajendran, 2001). Inset shows focal mechanism solutions of the some of these earthquakes indicating strike-slip and normal faulting. (after Rastogi, 1992).

EW trending PalghatCauvery and MoyarAttur shear Zones of Precambrian antiquity (Figs. 10 and 12). The much faulted southern part (Southern Granulite Terrane) was thrust up as high mountains culminating eventually in the emergence of the Nilgiri Hills in the north, and the AnnaimalaiElaimalai Hills in the south (Valdiya, 2001b). The territory of the Palghat Gap failed to rise above 50 300 m and thus remained a low-altitude belt. The northwarddirected thrust movement was transferred partially as strikeslip displacement along the reactivated NS and NNWSSE trending faults of the terrains north of the MoyarAttur Shear zone. How else would one explain the tremendous heights of the Southern and Central Sahyadri in the profoundly peneplaned shield and the activeness of the fault that cut them? SIGNATURES OF THE MARION HOTSPOT In the NNWSSE trending chain of islets the Saint Marys Island off the coast of northwestern Karnataka (Fig.11 upper), the eruption of the rhyolites, rhyodacites and

dacites is attributed to the Indian plate moving over the Marion Hotspot (Subbarao et al. 1993). The Ar40-Ar39 date of the lavas is 85.604 Ma (Pande et al. 2001). Significantly, in the adjoining inland region of Karnataka there are 90.01.0 and 87.509 Ma old dolerite dykes (Anil Kumar et al. 2001), and in northwestern Kerala the leucogabbro and felsite dykes have been dated 85 Ma (T. Radhakrishna et al. 1999). As the Indian plate moved over the Marion Hotspot, the long stretch of land to the north of the St. Marys Island must have been affected, and affected considerably. Where and what are the signatures of the Marion Hotspot in the Konkan, western Gujarat and western Rajasthan? Do the Gulf of Khambhat and its northern continuation the Sabarmati Graben represent the impact of the Marion plume activity? But the geophysicists say that the basement of the Sabarmati Graben is made up of 10003200 m thick Deccan volcanics (Tewari et al. 1995). If that is so, it cannot be the work of the Marion. It can not be related to the Reunion Hotspot either.
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Fig.7. Major faults in the MumbaiBasseinPanvel region in NW Maharashtra, which have caused vertical uplift of the lava pile, and are locations of epicentres. Hot springs occur in the proximity of some faults (from Srinivasan, 2002). Upper Inset: Distribution of epicentres (y) and the faults of the Mumbai region (based on Srinivasan, 2002). Lower Inset : Abrupt deflection of rivers along the NNWSSE trending lineaments, implying strike-slip displacement along them (based on Kundu and Matam, 2000).
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Fig.8. Active NNWSSE oriented faults in the Kanara Coastal Belt and adjoining Sahyadri Range. The rivers are ponded at the points of their crossing these faults, implying displacement along the latter. (Valdiya, 2000b). Inset : Location of epicentres of earthquakes (y) of magnitude 3 to 5 on or in the close proximity of the lineaments in the above-mentioned terrains. (Based on Sambandam et al. 1994).

What caused the stretching and sinking of the KhambhatSabarmati terrane? In the western Gujarat, the Kachchh Basin is a consequence of lithospheric stretching and rifting (Fig.11 Middle) in the late Triassic (Biswas, 1982, 2005) or mostly in the early Jurassic. The depositional sites were of the nature of an embayment between the uplifted TharadNagarparkar

Ridge in the north, and the raised Saurashtra High in the south and RaddhanpurBarmer High in the east. A NNE SSW trending feature divides the basin into two parts (Biswas and Deshpande, 1983). Then there are a couple of long active faults trending roughly eastwest. The sediments that accumulated in this basin span a long period of stretching from the Lower Jurassic to the Tertiary.
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Fig.9. In the Malabar Coastal Belt and Southern Sahyadri the prominent trends of faults (lineaments) are WNWESE and NNWSSE. The epicentres of earthquakes are located on or close to these faults (lineaments) (based on Rajendran and Rajendran, 1997; Singh and Mathai, 2004). Inset : Locations of earthquakes in the duration December 12, 2000 to January 7, 2001 in the Irattupetta area in relation to the NNWSSE and ENEWSW trending faults (after Bhattacharya and Dattatrayam, 2002).

North of the Sabarmati Graben, the SanchorBarmer graben in western Rajasthan is a NS trending narrow fault-delimited depression. The Barmer Graben (Fig.11 lower) comprises sediments of the Lower Cretaceous Sarnu Formation unconformably overlain by the Palaeocene Fatehganj Formation (Sisodia and Singh, 2000). The sediments span a time period of 135 to 95 m.y. It is worthwhile noting that beyond the Barmer Basin is the Jaisalmer Basin, where petroleum has been found. Are the Kachchh Basin and the Barmer Basin a consequence of the Marion plume hitting the Gujarat Rajasthan part of the Indian plate earlier than in St. Marys belt?
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If so, is there any evidence of volcanic or intrusive activities in the Kachchh and Barmer Grabens? Rifting is evident, development of fault is proven. Why did not these faults provide pathways to lavas, and sites of emplacement of magmatic intrusions? Have we missed them? What is the specific condition of heat-flow along the margins of these basins? What does gravity studies tell about the geophysical characteristics of the graben boundaries? THE SUTURES Within the Indian shield a number of belts and chains of

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Fig.10. Upper: The much faulted terrane of southern India. The movement along many of these faults have generated earthquakes (from Valdiya, 2010). Lower: The northward directed pressure on the Indian crust caused its breaking and squeezing up of the faulted blocks. This has resulted in the emergence of such high mountains as the Nilgiri and the Annaimalai. The block between the two high mountains failed to rise up and gave rise to the Palghat Gap (after Valdiya, 1998).

ultrabasicbasic rocks involved in severe shearing and attendant high-grade metamorphism have been described as suture zones. The suture zones are taken to represent tectonic junctions of collided continents or continental blocks. In Southern Peninsular India, the PalghatCauvery Shear Zone is a great tectonic junction or divide (Fig.12). In the eastern Namakkal area, in contrast to the complex metamorphism under high temperature (730C) and pressure (~ 8.5 kbar) in the belt south of the shear zone, the rocks of the northern block recorded metamorphism that took place under temperature higher than 850C and pressure more than 9.6 kbar, followed by isothermal decompression, implying that the shear zone represents juxtaposition of two contrasted domains (John et al. 2005). The aeromagnetic data and anomalies of the 36 to 40 km thick Dharwar Block give

way to the EW oriented anomaly in the nearly 22 km thick PalghatCauvery Shear Zone (Rajaram and Harikumar, 2001) and the composite airborne total intensity map plus gravity anomaly modelling with seismic constraints suggest that the crustal block of the Southern Granulite Terrane south of the PalghatCauvery Shear Zone (P-CSZ) is 44 to 46 km thick (Mishra and Vijaya Kumar, 2005), that it shows three times higher heat flow (M.L. Gupta et al. 1991), and that there is mild to low seismicity in the PalghatCauvery Shear Zone (Rajendran and Rajendran, 1996). The defining faults of the Shear Zones show undoubted dip-slip movements as well as strike-slip displacement (Drury et al. 1984; Naha and Srinivasan, 1996; DCruz et al. 2000). What exactly is the nature of the PalghatCauvery Shear Zone? Is it really a suture zone?
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Fig.11. Upper: Marion Hotspot is believed to be responsible for the volcanic activity in the St. Marys Island, offshore NW Karnataka, and for intrusive activity in western Karnataka and northwestern Kerala (after Anil Kumar et al. 2001). Middle : The much-faulted Kachchh Basin, now comprising an EW oriented series of ridges and half-grabens, is a consequence of rifting of the northwestern continental margin of India (after Biswas, 2005). Lower: The Barmer Basin in Western Rajasthan is a graben in which MesozoicCenozoic sediments were deposited. No signs of volcanic or magmatic activities are seen in the basin (after Sisodia and Singh, 2000).
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Or does it represents a graben of great antiquity that has been subjected to compression during and/or after the Pan-African upheaval? If it is a suture zone between two convergent continents, where are the metamorphosed remnants of the typical assemblages of the subductionobduction zone, such as (i) oceanic trench sediments including turbidites and chert beds (which make the accretionary prisms), (ii) the pieces of oceanic crust with sheeted dykes and the slices of upper mantle that is, the ophiolite and ophiolitic melange, (iii) remains of island arc, (iv) the low-temperature highpressure blueschists with such remarkable minerals as glaucophane, jadeite, lawsonite with or without phengite or coesite? Why is there no chain of Andean-type magmatism and volcanism just outside the periphery of the zone? But for the occurrence of ultrabasic and alkaline intrusive plutons, particularly in the neighbourhood of the Moyar Bhavani Shear Zone (Fig.12 Inset), no other unequivocal features related to subduction, suture and obduction have been described.

Within the Dharwar Craton, the Chitradurga Schist Belt is delimited by the Chitradurga Boundary Fault (Fig.13) that once registered sinistral strike-slip movements (Ramakrishnan, 1993, 2003; Chadwick et al. 2007). The Chitradurga Boundary Fault divides the craton into the Eastern and Western Dharwar Blocks. Aeromagnetic anomalies and teleseismic receiver-function modelling show that in contrast to the 3540 km thick western block, the eastern block is 35 km thick (Reddy et al. 2000; Anand and Rajaram, 2002; Gupta et al. 2003). Questions similar to those related to the PalghatCauvery Shear Zone arise when the Chitradurga Boundary Fault or Shear Zone (Figs. 12 and 13) is discussed. What exactly is the nature of the Chitradurga Boundary Fault? Is it a suture? A rift boundary? What and where are the features and things that show it one way or the other? The Sileru Shear zone (Chetty, 1995), also called the Terrane Boundary Shear Zone (Biswal et al. 2000; Biswal

Fig.12. Sketch map of southern India showing the MoyarBhavaniAttur Shear Zone, the PalghatCauvery Shear Zone, and the Chitradurga Shear Zone (Boundary Fault) that delimit the various lithotectonic blocks or terranes of the Southern Indian shield. Inset: Spatial distribution of ultrabasic and alkaline complexes show their remarkable proximity to the shear zones that delimit the cratonic blocks against the Mesoproterozoic mobile belts. (based on Ratnakar and Leelanandam, 1989; Santosh, 1989).
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Fig.13. (A) The Chitradurga Shear Zone (Boundary Fault) divides the Dharwar Craton into eastern and western blocks, the crustal thickness of which differ (based on Chadwick et al. 2003). (B) NESW cross section of the Dharwar Craton demonstrates the relationship of the Peninsular Gneiss, the supracrustal Dharwar Supergroup, and the schist belts (based on Chadwick et al. 2000).

and Sinha, 2003) or the Eastern Ghat Boundary Fault (Crowe et al. 2003), marks the western limit of the Eastern Ghat Mobile Belt (Fig.14). The shear zone dips steeply (50) eastwards with its curvilinear geometry. It is characterized among others by ultra-high temperature (9501040C at 810 kbar) metamorphism, (Dasgupta, 1995; Dasgupta and Sengupta, 2002) and intrusive plutons of basicultrabasic rocks, carbonatite and synkinematic alkaline complexes, some of them significantly deformed (Sarkar and Paul, 1998; Leelanandam, 1989, 2005; Leelanandam et al. 2006). It has been suggested that the Eastern Ghat Mobile Belt was amalgamated with the Bastar and Dharwar cratons (Dobmeier and Raith, 2003; Upadhyay et al. 2006). There is also a view that the intrusive bodies mark the site of intracontinental rifting, the peaks of petrotectonic events occurring at 1500 Ma, 900 and 500 Ma (Sarkar and Paul, 1998).
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What indeed is this Sileru Shear Zone or Eastern Ghat Boundary Fault? Does it mark a junction of two different continents? Or is it an intracontinental shear zone? The Singhbhum Shear Zone, also called Copper Belt Thrust, is a 15 km wide belt of metagreywacke-volcanic assemblages, and of multiplicity of fractures and thrust planes with variable upward displacement of the northern block. Some of the fractures and faults reach the upper mantle and thus provided pathways to outpouring lavas and emplacement of plutons (Naha, 1962; Banerji, 1962, 1969). The occurrence of bands of mylonites testify to strong thrusting (Ghosh and Sengupta, 1990). What does the Singhbhum Shear Zone signify? A zone of obduction? If yes, which lithological units represent (i) the accretionary prism related to an oceanic trench, (ii) the

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Fig.14. Sketch map of the Eastern Ghat showing what has been described as the Sileru Shear Zone, Eastern Ghat Boundary Fault and Terrane Boundary Shear Zone, and juxtaposition of the Proterozoic mobile belt against the Singhbhum, Bastar and Dharwar cratons (after Biswal and Sinha, 2003). Inset: The distribution of ultrabasic and alkaline rock complexes in the Eastern Ghat Mobile Belt and the Southern Granulite Terrane (based on Leelanandam, 1989, 1993).

ophiolite and ophiolitic melanges, (iii) the island-arc complex, and (iv) the Andean-type arc of magmatism and volcanism? Where are the blueschists? In Rajasthan, a steep-gradient Bouguer Gravity anomaly of 7080 mGal extends all along the trend of the Aravalli, the conspicuous lows coinciding with the side defined by a NW-dipping 30-km deep thrust (Tewari et al. 1998). The presence of divergent seismic reflection fabric implies downwarping of the crust (Vijaya Rao et al. 2000; Vijaya Rao and Reddy, 2002). Interpretation of gravity and magnetic data for depth estimation by application of scaling spectral method shows that the mid-crustal layer has risen up and that the upliftment is related to a 109-km wide and 25-km thick domal structure below the Aravalli orogen (Dimri et al. 2003). There was thickening of the crust due either to the

addition or to underplating of granite magma (Sharma, 1988, 1995), or as a result of multiple thrusting and stacking of slabs (Sinha-Roy et al. 1993). Interestingly, the Aravalli divides the large Rajasthan craton into the eastern Bundelkhand block and the western Mewar block. Was there rifting apart of the crust the breaking of the BundelkhandRajasthan Craton into the Mewar Block and the Bundelkhand Block as Sinha-Roy suggests? The layered gabbro, harzburgite and serpentinized ultramafic rocks, associated with sheeted dykes, pillow lavas, hyaloclastic material (Khan et al, 2005) and the blueschist the Phulad Ophiolite in the proximity of greywackeclaystone assemblage in the Phulad area is described as representing ophiolitic complex (Sychanthavong and Desai, 1977) of the obduction zone delimited by the Rakhabdeo
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Fig.15. Sketch map of the Singhbhum Craton in juxtaposition with the Singhbhum Mobile Belt in Jharkhand. The Singhbhum Shear Zone defines the boundary of the craton against the mobile belt (after Saha, 1994). IOG = Iron Ore Group; SG = Singhbhum Granite; OM = Older Metamorphics; CGC = Chhotanagpur Gneissic Complex.

Dislocation (Sinha Roy, 1984; Sinha-Roy and Mohanty, 1988). In the PhuladBarr belt, trace-element and rare-earth geochemistry of the basicultrabasic assemblage (now exhibiting amphibolite facies metamorphism) is, significantly, characteristic of the ocean-arc basalt (Volpe and Macdougall, 1990). Does it mean that the Rabhabdeo Dislocation Zone together with the Kaliguman Dislocation Zone represents a suture, defining a zone of obduction between two continents? Which petrological complexes would then represent an island arc and an Andean-type magmatic-volcanic arc? Or is it just an intracontinental rift zone complex?
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Why no detailed studies have been carried out on the blueschists? FINALLY Plodding as I do, but continuing to sing my songs in the evening of my life, I must confess that I should have striven myself to address at least some of the problems which confronted me when I had physical energy and the company of daring young colleagues by my side. Hopeful that the vastly more knowledgeable and physically and materially very much stronger earth scientists of the present would be enthused to follow the road less travelled by, I have posed the questions that have stirred me greatly.

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Fig.16. Sketch map of the Aravalli Mobile Belt (showing occurrence of mineral deposits), major dislocations and the Rakhadeo Suture. (after Deb and Sarkar, 1990). Inset : Diagramatic map showing the major dislocations (or thrusts) in the Mewar block of the Bundelkhand (Rajasthan) craton. (after Sinha-Roy et al. 1995). Abbreviations: A - Ambaji; AK - Akwali; B - Banera; BG - Basantgarh; BL - Balda; BM - Barolmagra; BT - Bethumni; BY - Birantia; C = Chandmari; D - Degana; DP - Devpura; DR - Devi; G - Golla; Gn - Gogunda; JP - Jahazpur; JS - Jhamarkotra; K - Kulihan; PL - Pipela; KD - Khoda-Dariba; MB - Mochiamagra-Balaria; MK - Madankudan; P - Pur; PP - Phalwad-Positara; S - Sawar; SD - Satkul-Dhanaole; SK - Sindeswar-Kalan; T - Tiranga; Up - Udaipur; Us - Umra-Udaisagar.
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(Received: 31 January 2011; Revised form accepted: 5 April 2011)

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