India-Antarctica collisional ridge structure below Nellore Schist and Eastern Ghats Belts as revealed by seismic studies

In Columbia, Rodinia and Gondwana supercontinental assembly periods, eastern margin of India lay quite close to the east Antarctica. During these periods, this region underwent prolonged sedimentation, magmatism, oceanic subduction, multiple accretion and continent-continent collision which have lef...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geosystems and Geoenvironment
Main Authors: K. Chandrakala, O.P. Pandey, Satendra Singh
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geogeo.2022.100039
https://doaj.org/article/cce2b35066dc4a5fbe08918c7546e949
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Summary:In Columbia, Rodinia and Gondwana supercontinental assembly periods, eastern margin of India lay quite close to the east Antarctica. During these periods, this region underwent prolonged sedimentation, magmatism, oceanic subduction, multiple accretion and continent-continent collision which have left their imprints in the geological and geophysical observations. In the present study, we have analyzed crustal seismic velocity structure along the DSS profiles located in the eastern part of the Indian shield that cuts across the Proterozoic Cuddapah Basin, Godavari and Mahanadi Gondwana grabens. The study revealed presence of a prominent high velocity (6.2–6.5 km/s) hidden ridge structure, which is 30 to 50 km wide and located at a shallow subsurface depth beneath the Nellore Schist Belt and Eastern Ghats Belt. It underlies below Kaligiri-Duttaluru along the Kavali-Parnapalle profile, Darsi-Addanki along the Alampur-Koniki-Ganapeswaram profile and Sattupalli-Ashwaraopet in Kallur-Polavaram profile. This ridge structure is conspicuously characterized by high gravity anomaly gradients from -90 to -15 mGal. Gravity patterns over these regions further indicate that this ridge which appears to continue from the north of Chennai to Bhavanipatna region in Bastar Craton, may have been formed due to the collision of East Antarctic terrain with eastern Indian Shield after the cessation of supra-subduction at the end of Mesoproterozoic. Further, this ridge structure is flanked by Proterozoic sediments on either side; in Cuddapah Basin on its western side and East Coast Sedimentary Basin on its eastern side, which together with the possible occurrence of Proterozoic sediments in other basins, would indicate that the extent of Proterozoic sedimentation was much larger than hitherto known. We suggest that this region was rifting during Paleo-Mesoproterozoic period and possibly a shallow marine basin existed, when it was an integral part of the Columbia supercontinent assembly. It underwent another rifting phase and denudation ...