Morphotectonic evolution of the Piedmont Zone of the west Ganga Plain, India

Controls of basin margin tectonics on the morphology of alluvial fans in the western Ganga foreland basin's piedmont zone, India

“…Moreover, a number of NW/N/NE–SE/S/SW trending strike‐slip and oblique‐slip faults traverse the area (marked 1–13 in Figure ; Goswami, ; Goswami & Mishra, , ; Goswami & Pant, ; Luirei, Bhakuni, & Kothyari, ; Parkash et al, ; Srivastava, Kulshrestha, & Agarwal, ; Valdiya, ; Valdiya, Rana, Sharma, & Dey, ; Yhokha, Chang, Goswami, Yen, & Lee, ). Except for Unchapul Fault (UF), all the other faults offset the HFT (Goswami, ; Goswami & Mishra, , ; Yhokha et al, ).…”

“…The megafans are dominantly sandy in nature, extend up to the central part of the basin, and have large areas (more than a thousand km 2 ) and gentle gradients (generally <0.5°; Chakraborty, Kar, Ghosh, & Basu, ; Geddes, ; Gohain & Parkash, ; Shukla, Singh, Sharma, & Sharma, ). On the other hand, the alluvial fans are dominantly gravelly in nature, restricted to the piedmont zone of the basin, adjoining the Himalayan‐front, and have small areas (not more than a few hundred km 2 ) and steeper gradients (up to 3°) (Goswami & Mishra, , , ; Goswami, Pant, & Pandey, ; Goswami & Yhokha, ; Shukla, ; Shukla & Bora, ). Moreover, the alluvial fans have developed in the intermegafan areas of the piedmont zone (Singh, ).…”

“…Although few accounts of the geomorphology and active tectonics of some isolated parts of the Ganga basin's piedmont zone were presented by Nakata (), Singh et al (), and Agarwal, Singh, Sharma, Sharma, and Rajagopalan (), detailed studies of the Ganga basin's alluvial fans started only in the last 15 years, with a preliminary sedimentological account of one fan (the Gola fan) of the western Ganga basin by Shukla and Bora (). Subsequently, Goswami et al (), Goswami and Yhokha (), and Goswami and Mishra (, ) carried out geomorphological studies of the alluvial fans of the western Ganga basin between the rivers Sarda and Ganga. Shukla () and Goswami and Mishra () determined sedimentology of the Gola and Malin fans, respectively; the sedimentology of the other fans is yet to be determined.…”

Geomorphological evolution of badlands based on the dynamics of palaeo-channels and their implications

“…The southern margin of foreland basin is marked by a regional gentle fore-bulge (DeCelles 2011) in the form of Bundelkhand-Vindhyan Plateau (Singh 1996), while the northern margin is marked by the Shiwalik Hills. From north to south, the Ganga Plain can be subdivided into three geomorphic units: (1) Piedmont Zone (PZ), (2) Central Alluvial Plain (CAP), and (3) Marginal Alluvial Plain (MAP) (Singh 1996;Agarwal et al 2002;Goswami and Mishra 2014), where, the MAP is enclosed by the Yamuna River and the Indian craton. Marginal Alluvial Plains are incised with the most severe intricate network of gullies, thus forming badlands (also known as ravines; figure 1) along the Chambal, the Betwa, the Yamuna rivers and their tributaries.…”

“…The formation of Himalaya Foreland Basin (HFB) leads to one of the most extensive alluvial plains in the world, i.e., Indo-Gangetic plains (Gibling et al 2005), where, Ganga Plains represent the fore-deep (DeCelles and Giles 1996) part of the HFB system (Goswami and Mishra 2014). The southern margin of foreland basin is marked by a regional gentle fore-bulge (DeCelles 2011) in the form of Bundelkhand-Vindhyan Plateau (Singh 1996), while the northern margin is marked by the Shiwalik Hills.…”