Geological History of India

Landforms, rivers and minerals make sense only when you know how the Indian land was formed.

The story in five steps

1. Pangaea. About 250-200 million years ago (Ma) all continents formed one super-continent, Pangaea, surrounded by the ocean Panthalassa.
2. Gondwanaland. Pangaea split into Laurasia (north) and Gondwanaland (south). Gondwana included India, Australia, Africa, South America, Antarctica. The Tethys Sea lay between Laurasia and Gondwana.
3. Drift. About 150-130 Ma the Indian plate broke away from Gondwana and drifted north at an unusually fast pace (about 15-20 cm a year). Its movement left behind the Indian Ocean.
4. Collision. About 55-50 Ma India touched the Eurasian Plate. The sediments of the Tethys Sea were folded and thrown up, forming the Himalayas. The collision continues even today; the Himalayas rise at a few mm each year, and earthquakes are the result.
5. Deccan Traps. Near the end of the Cretaceous, about 66 Ma, massive fissure volcanism (linked to the Réunion hotspot) poured basalt over a vast area of the peninsula and formed the Deccan Trap, source of the black soil.

Himalayan orogeny (mountain building): three phases

The sediments of the rivers that flowed down the young mountains filled the foredeep between the Himalaya and the Peninsula to form the Northern Plains.

Geological time scale (very brief)