S U M M A R YDeep seismic sounding data were acquired in the West Bengal basin, India, along two profiles: (i) Bishnupur-Palashi-Kandi, along a line about 227 km long in the northsouth direction and (ii) Taki-Arambagh, along a line about 120 km long in the east-west direction. Seismic refraction and wide-angle reflection data were recorded by continuous profiling using two 60-channel digital seismic units (DFS-V) with an 80 m geophone group interval and 4 ms sampling rate. These data were interpreted in order to delineate the basement configuration. The 2-D models of the seismic data both indicate a five-layer velocity structure above the Archaean crystalline basement (5.9-6.2 km s-I). A low-velocity layer (4.0 km s-') is inferred immediately above the basement in the shelf region of the basin corresponding to the Gondwana sediments (Upper Carboniferous to Lower Triassic) below the Rajmahal Traps (Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous) of 4.6 to 4.8 km s-' velocity, which is also confirmed from the nearby well data. The results along the Taki-Arambagh profile and the drilling results at the Jaguli (J-1) well are used to investigate whether Gondwana sediments and the Rajmahal Traps exist in the deep part of the Bengal basin. An additional layer of velocity 5.2-5.3 km s-', delineated in the Palashi-Kandi profile overlying the basement, may correspond to the Singhbhum group of rocks of the Proterozoic.A structural contour map of the basement prepared from the present results indicates a south-easterly dip of the basement in general. The depth of the basement on the stable shelf of the basin gently increases to about 8 km and dips steeply, plunging to a maximum depth of 14 km in the deep basin. No structural high that can be related to the 'Calcutta gravity high' is found in the basement around the Hooghly River.

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The crustal structure in the West Bengal basin, India has been investigated by means of wide-angle reflection data recorded along (i) Bishnupur-Palashi-Kandi, 227-km long profile in the north-south direction and (ii) Taki-Arambagh, 120-km long profile in the east-west direction. The data were acquired using multichannel digital seismic instruments with close station spacing. The crustal model, initially derived by 1-D forward modeling of the wide-angle reflection data, has been iteratively refined by 2-D ray tracing and modeling of travel-time observations and the corresponding synthetic seismograms computation. The structural contour map of the Moho prepared from the present data set, indicates the crustal thickness of about 37 km in the western margin of the basin, thinning to about 28 km in the east with an upwarp in the Moho boundary. The upwarp in the Moho and the inferred structural features may be indicative of crustal rifting. The well-known gravity anomaly in the West Bengal basin, 'Calcutta gravity high,' appears to have resulted from the Moho upwarp in combination with the huge thickness of sediments deposited east of the steep flexure of the crystalline basement representing the 'Hinze zone.'