The western continental margin of India: Indian scientific contributions (2016-2018)

Abstract

The western continental margin of India (WCMI) is among some of the most spectacular passive margins with numerous pronounced morpho-tectonic features. While it preserves early imprints of the final Gondwana dispersal, deep post-rift sedimentary archives on this margin are crucial for deciphering the India-Eurasia collisional tectonics and its long term climatic response. With a varying degree of magmatism along its ~2500 km long N-S stretch, the WCMI has a gently dipping wide shelf in the north as compared to the steep and narrower shelf in the south. Due to its vital link in understanding the formation and evolution of passive continental margins, the past few years have witnessed significant growth in the geoscientific studies especially led by the Indian geoscientific community. Here we collate some of the recent Indian contributions (2015-2018) aimed at augmenting our knowledge about the origin and subsequent evolution of this complex passive margin. Scientific contributions discussed in this review primarily focuses on various tectonic fragments/ domains along WCMI namely-submarine fan, shelf, seamounts, aseismic ridges, and abyssal basins.These recent studies using new seismic, bathymetric, potential field and magnetic data have targeted both aspects of the WCMI fairly well in terms of unraveling its early as well as late structural and tectonic evolution. We also make a particular mention of the first-ever deep-sea drilling through the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) expedition 355 in the eastern Arabian Sea and the initial scientific findings emanating from it.