The Seismic Structure of the Saurashtra Crust in Northwest India and Its Relationship with the Reunion´ Plume

Geophys. J. Int. (2005) 160, 318–330 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2004.02448.x The seismic structure of the Saurashtra crust in northwest India and its relationship with the Reunion´ Plume G. Surya Prakasa Rao and H. C. Tewari National Geophysical Research Institute, Uppal Road, Hyderabad 500 007, India. E-mails: [email protected]; [email protected] Accepted 2004 August 5. Received 2004 July 27; in original form 2003 September 5 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/160/1/318/2022045 by guest on 29 September 2021 SUMMARY The Saurashtra Peninsula in northwest India, lying at the northern boundary of the Dec- can Volcanic Province, is almost entirely covered by these volcanics. Analogue seismic refraction/wide-angle reflection data along a 160 km long profile, from Navibandar to Amreli, were collected during 1977 to determine the crustal configuration. Reprocessing of these data, after digitization, has yielded a crustal model that is significantly different from the earlier model of Kaila et al. The model shows the upper crust down to a depth of 16 km in the west and 13 km in the east and underplating (velocity of 7.20 km s−1)ofthe lower crust. The Moho is at a depth of ∼36 km in the western part and at 32–33 km in the eastern part; the change of depth is quite sharp almost in the middle of the profile. Similar depth changes are seen in other crustal horizons indicating a deep fault that is in line with the extension of the Proterozoic Aravalli trend in to the Saurashtra Peninsula. The crustal structure in the eastern part is similar to that in the Cambay Basin and indicates that the crust to the east of the proposed fault is uplifted. The uplifted region extends as far as another arm of the Aravalli trend that turns east- wards. Crustal underplating in large parts of western India is confined to the corridors affected by the passage of India over the RéunionPlume in the Late Cretaceous. The shallower Moho appears to be confined to the areas close to the axis (trace of the plume) on Earth’s surface of the plume. Key words: crust, Réunion Plume, Saurashtra, seismic structure, velocity, wide-angle reflection. from the block consisting of India, Madagascar and the Seychelles 1INTRODUCTION during the Middle to Late Jurassic period. The second event was GJI Tectonics and geodynamics The continental flood basalts, known as the Deccan Volcanics,cover the break-up of Madagascar along the west coast of India, during large parts of northwest India. These consist of several flows of the Middle to Late Cretaceous, probably under the influence of the mainly tholeiitic lava that extruded from the RéunionPlume during Marion Plume (Raval & Veeraswamy 2003). The last event was the the passage of the Indian Plate over the plume in Cretaceous–Early break-up of the Seychelles Plateau from the Indian Plate, followed Tertiary time (Morgan 1981). The Saurashtra Peninsula (Fig. 1) by eruption of the Deccan Volcanics due to interaction between the along with the Kutch region is at the northern boundary of these Réunion hotspot and the overlying lithospheric plate, during the volcanics. It represents a horst-like uplift due perhaps to the Deccan Late Cretaceous (McKenzie & Sclater 1971; Raval & Veeraswamy volcanic activity (Krishnan 1982; Valdiya 1984). The geological 2000). history in the Saurashtra region is obscure before the volcanic ex- Three major Precambrian orogenic trends (Fig. 3), namely the trusion. A few exposures of Tertiary and Quaternary sediments can NNW–SSE Dharwar in the southern part, the NE–SW Aravalli in be seen in the coastal belt. The geological sequences (Fig. 2) ob- the northeastern part and ENE–WSW Satpura in the central part, tained from the deep bore wells at Lodhika and Dhanduka (Singh converge in western India (Biswas 1987). The Cambay rift repre- et al. 1997) indicate that the Deccan Volcanics were preceded by sents the NNW extension of the Dharwar trend. The Delhi–Aravalli Cretaceous/Jurassic sediments, volcanic tuff and possibly another system divides itself into three trends. The Delhi trend takes a west- sedimentary layer over a crystalline basement of Precambrian age. ward swing to overlap with the Kutch rift. The Aravalli trend crosses Development of the structural trends, rift basins and different the Cambay rift and enters the Saurashtra horst. On its southern kinds of igneous intrusions over the west coast of India and ad- side the Aravalli folding takes an acute eastward swing to merge joining regions were affected by three major tectonic events during with the Satpura trend. the Mesozoic period, after the break-up of Gondwanaland (Besse A number of volcanic plugs in the west (Girnar, Barda, Alech) & Courtillot 1988). The first of these was the break-up of Africa and in the southeast (Chogat, Chamardi) are reported in this region 318 C 2004 RAS Seismic structure of the Saurashtra crust 319 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/160/1/318/2022045 by guest on 29 September 2021 Figure 1. Geological map of Saurashtra and adjoining regions. The Navibandar–Amreli deep seismic sounding (DSS) profile recorded in Saurashtra and a part of the DSS profile of the Cambay Basin are plotted. Some shot point (SP) numbers are indicated for Navibandar–Amreli. SPs 0, 0A, 80A, 80, 160 and 200 have been indicated but the remaining SP numbers are not included due to shortage of space. Volcanic plugs are: 1, Girnar; 2, Barda; 3, Alech; 4, Chogat; 5, Chamardi. (Fig. 1). The Girnar Massif at Junagadh has acidic and alkaline to The main features of the Bouguer gravity anomaly map of mafic/ultramafic rocks (Subba Rao 1968; Chandra 1999). Barda and Saurashtra (Fig. 4) are a series of northeast–southwest trending grav- Alech plugs are predominantly acidic in composition (Merh 1995), ity highs (D, E, F) of 40–60 mGal amplitude in the southeastern while the Chogat and Chamardi plugs are basically alkaline (Karanth part and of almost the same amplitude (A, B, C) in the region of & Sant 1995). the Girnar, Alech and Barda volcanic plugs (Mishra et al. 2001). Based on 40Ar/39Ar dates the age of the Deccan Volcanics is es- A broad low (H) with a steep gravity gradient (G) to its west, is timated as 66.5–68.5 Ma (Duncan & Pyle 1988) on the Western observed in central Saurashtra (Amreli–Chotila). Ghats (east of Bombay) and 65.5 ± 2.5 Ma (Vandamme et al. 1991) It has been proposed that the volcanic eruption from the Réunion on several samples between Bombay and Nagapur (in central In- Plume at ∼65 Ma was mainly responsible for the widespread vol- dia, not shown in the figures). Allegre et al. (1999) give an age of canic activity in western India (White & McKenzie 1989). The cen- 65.6 ± 0.3 Ma for the samples of Bombay–Nagapur region based tre of the plume at that time was close to the west coast of India. on 187 Re/187Os dating. Basu et al. (1993) give the 40Ar/39Ar age of The Saurashtra Peninsula was close to the trace of this plume on biotites from igneous complexes to the north of the Deccan Volcanic the Earth’s surface, during the passage of India over it, in the Late Province as 68.53 ± 0.16 Ma and 68.57 ± 0.08 Ma at Mundwara Cretaceous. The trace of the plume passed through the Cambay and Sarnu-Dandali respectively (not shown in the figures) and from Basin (Campbell & Griffiths 1990; Kaila et al. 1990) to the imme- the one which intrudes the flood basalt (Phenaimata, not shown in diate east of the Saurashtra Peninsula. the figures) as 64.96 ± 0.11 Ma. They conclude that these sam- To understand the crustal configuration, evolution and tectonic ples represent early and late magmatism with respect to the main history of the western part of India, a few deep seismic sounding pulse of continental flood basalts at ∼65 Ma, the early magmatism (DSS) profiles were recorded in the region (Kaila & Krishna 1992). shows that 3.5 Myr was the ‘incubation period’ of a primitive, high- Under this programme analogue data, in the form of seismic re- 3He mantle plume before the rapid eruptions of the Deccan flood fraction and wide-angle reflections, were also recorded during 1977 basalts. Karanth & Sant (1995) report that dyke swarms oriented along an east–west profile (Navibandar–Amreli) in the western part in east–west and northeast–southwest directions, representing the of the Saurashtra Peninsula. The results of those studies (Kaila et al. Deccan volcanic activity, are also found in the central and southeast 1980) provided the first model (Fig. 5) of the Saurashtra crust. Their Saurashtra. Mishra et al. (2001) hope that the dyke swarms follow model was based on conversion of traveltimes to depth. For this dominant structural trends in this region, as their orientation is al- conversion an average velocity model was determined for the entire most the same as that of igneous intrusions and alkaline complexes region based on the analysis of mutual shot point data for reflection of ∼65 Ma. traveltimes (Kaila & Krishna 1979). This model was translated to a C 2004 RAS, GJI, 160, 318–330 320 G. Surya Prakasa Rao and H. C. Tewari Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/160/1/318/2022045 by guest on 29 September 2021 Figure 2. Lithostratigraphic sections of the deep wells drilled in Saurashtra and their correlation (after Singh et al. 1997). 1-D interval velocity model to convert the reflection traveltime data 2THEDSSDATA to depth and migrated using the approach of Kaila et al.

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