Proterozoic Basins of Peninsular India: Status within the Global Proterozoic Systems

Abstract

This compilation is intended to present a snap-shot of the current status of the knowledge on the Proterozoic sediments and tectonic events that are preserved in Peninsular India; on the backdrop of the growing understanding of global events and environmental evolution during that period. Proterozoic sediments in Peninsular India are found in two contrasting categories of basins. Narrow linear intercratonic belts host terrigenous and marine sediments, often interbedded with volcanics and volcaniclastics; that are deformed, metamorphosed and occasionally intruded by granitic bodies. These belts abut with a tectonic contact with wide, unmetamorphosed platform sediments from epicratonic basins with limited igneous activity associated within them; clubbed as the Purana Basins of Peninsular India. Although traditionally the former (mobile belts) were considered to be older and different from the latter, emerging geochronological data demonstrates that they were coeval products of basins evolving adjoining each other in diverse tectonic setting. Available knowledge on these basins is summarised within the framework of the emerging understanding of the Proterozoic geohistory punctuated by assembly and break-up of supercontinents, progressive oxygenation of the atmosphere, changes in the sea-water chemistry; establishment of the continental free-board and the generic environments that laid the foundation of biotic evolution. Although significant advances have been made in the last decade in the knowledge of these sediments, much more is required to achieve the desired precision and resolution.

Himalayan Magmatism through space and time

“…As no deformation episodes are associated with this anorogenic magmatic event, it appears that the biotite gneiss and thinly banded pelitic sequence of the HHC represent original geoclinal facies of shale and thin sandstone intercalations, probably coeval with the 2.5 Ga orthoquartzite-volcanic platform association of foreland, deposited on an older unknown basement. This setting appears to be similar to the basinal setting of the Aravalli, Dharwar and other Proterozoic basins of Peninsular India (Ahmad et al, 2008;Manikyamba and Kerrich, 2012;Kale, 2016; references therein). Therefore, one can visualize an Early Proterozoic extensive ensialic basin in the Himalayan region with its shoulder, located southward in the Lesser Himalaya, represented by 2.5 Ga sedimentation of volcanic-orthoquartzite platform association and geoclinal pelites of the Higher Himalaya.…”

Implications of new $$^{40}\hbox {Ar}/^{39}\hbox {Ar}$$ 40 Ar / 39 Ar age of Mallapur Intrusives on the chronology and evolution of the Kaladgi Basin, Dharwar Craton, India

“…We therefore estimate that the Badami sedimentation cannot be older than 1000 Ma. The inferred age-ranges of deposition and hiatal break in the Kaladgi Basin by Kale and Phansalkar (1991) and that postulated by Kale (2016) are validated and refined by this data.…”

Paleoproterozoic ($$\sim$$1.88–1.89 Ga) ultramafic–mafic sills, Cuddapah basin, India—revisited: Implications for interaction between mantle plume and metasomatized subcontinental lithospheric mantle

“…The Indian peninsula, comprising a number of Archean cratonic blocks, mainly consists of greenstone and high-grade metamorphic belts embedded in tonalite-trondhjemite gneissic complexes with Archean protoliths and *2.5 Ga granitic activities (Naqvi and Rogers 1987;Mahadevan 2008; Ramakrishnan and Vaidyanadhan 2010) and later, during Paleoproterozoic, transected by several mafic dyke swarms (Murthy 1987;Srivastava et al 2008), which are thought to be part of different LIPs (S€ oderlund et al 2019;. Most of these cratonic blocks also witnessed development of several intracratonic basins, designated as Purana basins, in the late Palaeoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic (Radhakrishna 1987;Chakraborti et al 2010;Kale 2016). Among these Purana basins of the Indian peninsula, Cuddapah basin, occurring along the eastern margin of the Dharwar craton, is the second largest and the most studied Proterozoic basin (cf.…”