Chapter 9 - Aravali and Vindhyan Terranes

Abstract

Abstract The Aravali terrane is a highly deformed Proterozoic mobile belt entangled with an Archaean craton. It is split along its length by a number of crustal-scale shear zones, and dislocation zones developed in it during Precambrian time. Reactivation in the Late Quaternary of the shear zones is manifest in some areas, such as in the sinking of ground with a resultant formation of saline lakes, the bulging up of other areas with attendant watershed migration, the stream capture, the entrenched meander loops, and the persistent moderate to low seismicity in the fault-ridden northeastern part of the Aravali terrane. Separated from this consolidated complex by the Great Boundary Fault, which registers a cumulative throw of 500–1300 m, the vast Vindhyan Basin of Proterozoic sediments is largely undeformed, except for around its tectonic boundary with the Aravali in the west and the Satpura in the south. However, the Vindhyan basement is segmented by wrench faults as well as strike faults, some of which register a strike-slip motion. The pronounced development of badlands close to the northern faulted border against the Ganga Plain indicates a very slow uplift of the northern part.