TECTONIC FRAMEWORK OF INDIA

Introduction
The geological structure of the Indian Peninsula evolved through the welding of Archean cratonic nuclei by
several Proterozoic mobile belts as a result of multiple orogenic cycles ranging in age from the
Paleoproterozoic to early Palaeozoic; the Himalaya and the Indo-Ganga (Indo-Gangetic) Basin evolved in
response to the northward migration of the Indian Plate in the Cenozoic and collisional orogenesis involving
the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate (Fig. 1).

Figure 1- Map showing tectonic framework of the Indian Plate with major regional physiographic features
[base map taken from 3D world map]

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T he earliest proposal on the broad tectonic division of the Indian Shield (should read Peninsular
Indian Shield) was by Fermor (1936) who divided it into two broad tectono-metamorphic domains:
Charnockitic and Non-charnockitic regions.

Following the suggestion of the early geologists of late nineteenth century of the Geological Survey of India
(Medlicott and Blanford 1879–81), the Proto-India comprising components of Fermor’s (1936) Non-
Charnockitic terrane can be divided into a northern Aravalli-Bundelkhand domain and a southern Gondwana
domain. The two domains are physiographically separated by the Narmada-Son River Valley (Basin), which
today is better known as the Narmada-Son Lineament (Mahadevan 1994).

Tectonically, at a first order, Peninsular India consists of cratons and mobile belts that are curvilinear high-
grade gneiss-granulite terrains surrounding the cratonic nuclei (Fig. 2).

The Indian Shield has been considered to be made up mainly of four cratons (1) Dharwar, (2) Bastar, (3)
Singhbhum,
and (4) Aravalli-Bundelkhand, and four mobile belts i.e. the Eastern Ghat mobile belt fringing the Dharwar,
Bastar, and Singhbhum Cratons; the Pandyan Mobile Belt fringing the Dharwar Craton, the Satpura Mobile
Belt fringing the Bastar, Singhbhum, Bundelkhand Cratons (Ramakrishnan and Vaidyanadhan, 2010) and
the Aravalli-Delhi Mobile Belt (ADMB) fringing the Bundelkhand Craton (Fig.).

CRATONS:

1. The Dharwar Craton: (also known as Karnataka Craton) represents one of the largest cratonic masses of
the Indian shield. It is situated in Karnataka and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The Dharwar
craton is divided into two principal terrains: Eastern Dharwar Craton (EDC) and Western Dharwar Craton
(WDC).The contact between WDC and EDC is not sharp and marked by a transition zone consisting of the
Chitradurga Shear Zone. The craton is dominantly consisting of tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite gneisses,
which earlier were referred to as Peninsular gneisses (Sharma, 2009).

2. The Bastar Craton: (also called the Bhandara Craton) is located northeast of the Dharwar Craton and
covers a large area in Central India. It is bordered by the Pranhita-Godavari rift to the south, the Mahanadi
Rift in the northeast and the Satpura Mobile Belt in the north. The Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt lies to the east
and the Deccan Traps to the west. The Central Indian tectonic zone lies to its north. The Bastar Craton
consists mainly of granites and granitic gneisses commonly known as Gneissic Complex.

3. The Singhbhum Craton: is also called the Singhbhum-Odisha Craton in Eastern India contains the relics
of the oldest rocks of the Indian subcontinent. It covers the parts of Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal.
The craton is bordered by the Chhotanagpur Granite-Gneiss Complex (also called Chhotanagpur Craton)
and an extension of the Satpura mobile belt to the north and by the Eastern Ghats mobile belt to the
southeast. The Bastar Craton lies to the southwest and alluvium to the east of the Singhbhum Craton. The
Singhbhum Craton is triangular in shape and its core consists of granite that broadly known as Singhbhum
Granite. All rocks have undergone regional metamorphism of the amphibolite facies.

4. The Bundelkhand Craton: is the northernmost craton of the Indian Shield. It is located in Madhya
Pradesh and parts of Uttar Pradesh. It is a semi-circular shaped outcrop and represents one of the smallest
cratons of the Indian Shield. The Satpura mobile belt lies to the south and the Aravalli mobile belt to east of
the craton. The north and north eastern margins of the craton are partly concealed under the Indo-Gangetic
alluvium. It mainly consists of granite with gneissic bands, mafic to ultramafic rocks and Banded Iron
Formation. The granites of the Bundelkhand Craton are popularly referred to Bundelkhand Granite Massif.

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Aravalli Craton: (also known as Rajasthan Craton) is separated from the Bundelkhand Craton by the
Vindhyan basin. It covers the state of Rajasthan and parts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi.
The Narmada-Son Lineament lies to south of the craton and the Great Boundary Fault lies to its east. The
Deccan Traps lies to the southern margin of the craton. The craton is also separated from the Bastar and
Singhbhum cratons by the Narmada-Son Lineament. Tectonically, the Aravalli Craton is divided into two
parts. The eastern part is known as Mewar Craton and the Western part is called Marwar Craton. The
Aravalli Craton is primarily composed of gneisses, migmatites, meta-volcanic and meta-sedimentary rocks
with several granitic intrusions. It may be noted that sometimes, Aravalli and Bundelkhand cratons are
combined together as one craton and is termed as Aravalli-Bundelkhand Craton or Rajasthan Craton
(Sharma, 2009).

MOBILE BELTS:

The Archaean cratons such as Dharwar, Bastar, Singhbhum, Bundelkhand and Aravalli discussed earlier, are
separated from one another by the mobile or fold belts.The mobile belts were developed during Proterozoic
times, ranging from 2.5 billion years to 541 million years ago. The boundaries of the mobile or fold belts are
demarcated by shear or fault zones. A shear zone is a planar rock mass showing very higher strain than the
adjoining rocks. The width of shear zones ranges from a few millimetres to several tens of kilometres. A
shear zone behaves like a fault system except that the fault plane cannot be seen anywhere. The mobile belts
consist of metamorphosed Proterozoic rocks, in which schists, gneiss, amphibolite and migmatites are
dominant rock types.

1. Eastern Ghat Mobile Belt: occurs along the east coast of India. It borders the Dharwar and Bastar
cratons to the east and the Singhbhum craton to the south. It is about 1000 km in northwest to southwest
direction and runs parallel to the east coast of the Indian plate and bordered by the Bay of Bengal. It has a
tectonic contact with the Cuddapah Supergroup to the west. It consists of high-grade metamorphic rocks
such as charnockites, granulites, migmatites, khondalites and granite gneisses (Valdiya, 2016). This mobile
belt was developed during the Mesoproterozoic times (i.e. 1.6 to 1.0 billion years ago).

2. Pandyan Mobile Belt: the east-west trending Pandyan Mobile Belt is the southernmost mobile belt of the
Peninsular India. It is also known as Southern Granulite Terrain and Madurai block. It lies to the south of the
Dharwar craton and the Eastern Ghat Mobile Belt. It is made up of high-grade metamorphic rocks like
charnockites, khondalites and granulites with granitic intrusions of different ages. A system of shear zones
consisting of the Moyar Bhavani and Palghat Cauvery Shear Zones separate the southern boundary of the
Dharwar craton from the Pandyan Mobile Belt.

 Moyar Bhavani shear zone is located in the south of the Dharwar craton.
 Palghat Cauvery shear zone is found in the north of the Pandyan Mobile Belt.
 Chitradurga shear zone separates the Dharwar craton into two parts such as Eastern and
Western Dharwar cratons.

These shear zones enclose relatively undeformed blocks and lenses of granulites and anorthosite, gabbro and
ultramafic complexes.

3. Satpura Mobile Belt: The east-west trending Satpura Mobile Belt named after Satpura Mountain is a
long mobile belt. It separates Indian shield into two parts such as southern and northern.The southern parts
consisting of Dharwar, Bastar and Singhbhum cratons and Deccan Traps and northern part includes
Bundelkhand craton. The middle portion of the Satpura mobile belt is described as Central Indian Tectonic
Zone.

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4.Aravalli Mobile Belt: The Aravalli Mobile Belt is about 700 km long northeast to southwest treading belt
that placed to north of the Central Indian Suture Zone. It lies to the west of the Bundelkhand craton and
separates the Bundelkhand craton from the Aravalli craton.

Figure 2: Map showing Archaean cratons together with Proterozoic mobile belts, sutures and rifts in
Peninsular India. (Source: simplified after Ramakrishnan and Vaidyanadhan, 2008)

PROTEROZOIC BASINS

In very limited (stratigraphical) sense, place of deposition of sediments is called basin. The less disturbed
and unmetamorphosed Proterozoic sedimentary basins in Peninsular India are called as the Purana Basins.
These basins overlie on the deformed and metamorphosed Archaean/Palaeoproterozoic basement rocks and
were formed in a narrow time window, between Late Palaeoproterozoic and Early Mesoproterozoic (1900 -
1600 billion years ago). The Vindhyan, Chhattisgarh, Cuddapah, Marwar and Pranhita-Godavari are main
Proterozoic basins of Peninsular India.

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 Figure 3: Map showing major Proterozoic sedimentary basins of Peninsular India. (Source: modified after
Shah, 2018)

PROTEROZOIC SUTURE ZONES

Suture zones represent the regions where two continental plates have met together through the processes of
subduction and collision. The oceanic relics such as ophiolites are often present in the suture zones and thus,
indicating the sites of former ocean basins. Because of intensive tectonic activity, the suture zones are the
regions of intensive deformation, high magmatic activity and complex collisional-orogeny or mountain
buildings. At suture zone, a mixture of rock fragments, which is usually come from one plate or other plate
and get accreted or sutured or welded with another plate, is found. The suture zones also developed along
the margins of cratons and mobile belts of Peninsular India. The prominent suture zones of peninsular India
are:

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1. Cauvery Suture Zone: The Cauvery suture zone is the southernmost suture zone of the Peninsular India.
It is an east-west orienting suture zone with nearly 400 km long and about 70 km wide. It separates rocks of
the Dharwar craton of the north from granulites of the Pandyan mobile belt of the south. The Moyar Bhavani
shear zone marks its northern boundary and the Palghat Cauvery shear zone limits its southern boundary.
The Cauvery suture zone contains high grade metamorphic rocks such as granulites, charnockites,
migmatites and igneous rocks of mafic to ultramafic composition such as dunites, peridotites and
anorthosites.

2. Central India Suture Zone: The Central India Suture Zone is also known as Central India Tectonic Zone
(CITZ). It one of the major tectonics features of the Peninsular India. It is maximum 400 km wide suture
zone running east northeast-west southwest direction for more than 800 km. This suture zone separates the
peninsula into North Indian and South Indian crustal blocks. The block to the north of Central India suture
zone has the Archaean Bundelkhand craton and the composite block to the south is composed of the
Dharwar, Bastar and Singhbhum cratons. The Narmada and Tapti rivers flow within Central India suture
zone. Narmada and Tapti faults are prominent structural features of the Central India suture zone. The
metamorphosed supra-crustal belts, metamorphosed mafic and ultramafic bodies, metacarbonates, iron and
manganese formations, tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite gneisses, charnockites and related arc magmatic
suites are the main geological units that occur with Central India suture zone. North of the Central India
Suture Zone lies a lineament known as Son-Narmada-Tapti Lineament.

3. Phulad Suture Zone: The Delhi-Aravalli Mountains range is a prominent physiographic feature of
northwestern margin of the Indian shield. The eastern boundary of the range is marked by the Great
Boundary Fault and its western margin is demarcated by a suture zone known as Phulad suture zone.The
Delhi-Aravalli Mountains range is a part of the Aravalli mobile belt that exposes rocks of the Aravalli and
Delhi supergroups, which occur into two distinct fold belts such as North Delhi Fold Belt and South Delhi
Fold Belt. The ophiolites of the Phulad suture zone occur along the western margin of the South Delhi Fold
Belt. It is a north easterly oriented long and narrow zone of extreme deformation that demarcates the western
margin of the Proterozoic Delhi-Aravalli Fold Belt. It lies between two different rock assemblages such as
north eastern and south western. The north eastern assemblage consists of a variety of rocks such as pelites,
amphibolites and calc-silicates. The south western assemblage is primarily made up of granitic rocks.

4. Singhbhum Shear Zone: It is more than 200 km long and nearly 2 to10 km wide curvilinear shear zone
lies between the north of Chhotanagpur plateau and south of the Singhbhum craton. It is characterised by
multiple metasomatism events, extensive ductile shearing and migmatisation. This shear zone consists of
quartz-mica phyllonite, quartz-tourmaline rock, granitic mylonite and volcano-clastlc rocks. Singhbhum
Shear Zone rich in minerals deposits such as copper, uranium, tungsten and phosphate, therefore, it is also
named as Singhbhum Copper-Uranium Belt.

5. Great Boundary Fault: The Great Boundary Fault in south-eastern Rajasthan separates the weakly
deformed and unmetamorphosed rocks of the Vindhyan sediments from the older and deformed Aravalli
Supergroup. The Archaean basement and the Proterozoic Vindhyan sediments lying on the hanging wall
side of the fault have been folded into large-scale low plunging folds trending parallel to the Great Boundary
Fault.

The prominent suture zones of extra-peninsular India are present along:

The Himalayas:

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Figure: After the collision of Indian and Eurasian plates ( ̴ 50 million years ago), continued progressive
compression induced shortening that led to development of major thrusts/faults: Main Central Thrust
(MCT), Main Boundary Thrust (MBT), Himalayan Frontal Thrust (HFT), Main Frontal Thrust (MFT),
Indus-Tsanpo Suture Zone.

Traditionally the Himalaya is divided into three units:

1. The Sub-Himalaya, separated from the Indo-Gangetic plains by the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT);
2. The Lesser Himalaya, separated from the Sub- Himalaya by the Main Boundary Fault (MBF);
3. The High Himalaya and Tibet, separated from the Lesser Himalaya by the Main Central Thrust (MCT).

GONDWANA RIFT VALLEYS

After the deposition of the Proterozoic Vindhyan Supergroup, the sedimentation processes were ceased in
the Peninsular India during the much of the Palaeozoic Era. However, substantial sedimentation took place
during Upper Carboniferous to Lower Cretaceous in the intra-cratonic rift valley basins, formed by normal
faulting, of the Peninsular India. The sedimentary successions of these basins are known as Gondwana
basins. Stratigraphically, they constitute the Gondwana Supergroup. The rocks of the Gondwana Supergroup
mainly occur in the four isolated patches represented by linear tracts such as Pranhita-Godavari rift basin,
Son-Narmada rift basin, Mahanadi rift basin and Damodar rift basin.

These rift valleys are made up of fault systems mainly consisting of grabens, half grabens and horsts. The
Pranhita-Godavari rift valley is about 470 km long in strike length and consists of northwest-southeast
treading faults. It is situated between the eastern Dharwar and Bastar cratons in the states of Telangana and
Andhra Pradesh. It also passes through the Eastern Ghat mobile belt. The Proterozoic sedimentary sediments
of the Pranhita-Godavari rift valley are described as Pakhal Supergroup, Penganga Group and Albaka
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Group. The Son-Narmada rift valley is oriented in east northeast-west southwest trend and marks the
boundary between the Bundelkhand craton and the Bastar-Singhbhum cratons in Central India. The
Mahanadi rift occurs in the states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh and separates the Singhbhum craton
from the Bastar craton. The Damodar basin is an east-west trending rift zone located in West Bengal and
Jharkhand.

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copyright. It is given only to help the students of UG/PG courses in Geology and allied subjects to study as a part of their curriculum.