Gondwanaland and the Growth of India
Authors
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Department of Geophysics and Geochemistry, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra
A. R. Crawford
Abstract
New palaeomagnetic data clarify the manner of break-up of Gondwanaland and show that India was adjacent to Africa and Antarctica, but not Australia, during the Phanerozoic. This does not conflict with possible contiguity of parts of India and Australia before Gondwanaland came into existence.
Relative movement of the pole and a Gondwanaland which is known to have existed at least from the Cambrian to the time of break-up in the late Mesozoic implies non-synchroneity of glaciations geographically distant from one another, the products of which have also been scattered by drift. Precambrian tillites are unlikely to be synchronous; glaciations merely follow the poles.
A difference is established between the Indian peninsula. the Indian shield and Gondwanic India. The development of India has been in five stages; before Gondwanaland existed, during its life-span, during association with Madagascar while separate from Africa, during movement as Gondwanic India, and since collision and fusion with Asia.
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