The Scientific Case for EXPANSION TECTONICS

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INDIA


The Indian continent is traditionally shown on plate tectonic reconstructions to be an island continent migrating north during the Mesozoic Era, moving across a vast pre-existing Indian Ocean until it collided with Asia during the Cenozoic. Collision with Asia is then thought to have resulted in formation of the Himalayan Mountain belt.


The continental crustal development of India on an Expansion Tectonic Earth. Each of the early-Jurassic to early-Cretaceous models are centred on the South Pole (shown as black dots). The horizontal red line represents the location of the ancient equator, blue lines represent the ancient coastlines, and the black line represents the Indian continental crustal outline.


In contrast, the crustal development of India during Precambrian times on an Expansion Tectonic Earth initially formed a southern extension of the European and Asian Tethys Sea basin. During that time, and extending into later Palaeozoic times, India was located adjacent to East Antarctica to the northeast, Madagascar and South Africa to the southwest, and Arabia to the west. The ancient crust making up the present Indian continent was originally located within mid-southern to equatorial latitudes throughout the Precambrian and Palaeozoic times.


During the Mesozoic, India briefly migrated into mid-southern latitudes before returning to equatorial and low-northern latitudes during the later Cenozoic Era. This apparent migration of India was related to its proximity to the rapidly extending European and Asian Tethys Sea basin. It was also influenced by the migration of adjoining continents away from the ancient South Pole, which was then located in central West Africa, and to the newly opening Indian Ocean.


Crustal extension between the ancient north and south Indian crustal regions occurred during the Proterozoic Eon in conjunction with related crustal development in the Tethys region. This period of crustal extension continued into the Mesozoic Era. Crustal movement and mountain building in India was associated with crustal motion relative to Antarctica, Madagascar, and Africa, as well as a number of Palaeozoic to Cenozoic mountain building events along the northern Himalayan contact with Europe and Asia. In this context the Himalayan Mountain chain was intimately associated with changes to surface curvature focused along this northern Himalayan contact.


Continental separation and rifting of India, Madagascar, and Sri Lanka from Antarctica and Africa commenced in the Jurassic during initial opening of the Indian Ocean. Madagascar and Sri Lanka then began drifting away from India during the early- to mid-Cretaceous, with Sri Lanka continuing to remain in close proximity with India.


In contrast to plate tectonic reconstructions, on an Expansion Tectonic Earth the Indian continent has remained geologically attached to the Asian continent throughout all Earth history.

Because of the proximity of India to the European and Asian Tethys Sea region, India was geographically, but not geologically, isolated from Asia for much of that time by the presence of shallow continental seas. As the European and Asian Tethys Sea progressively drained during the Cenozoic Era, India and Asia were then fully exposed as one continuous continental plate with no requirement for a separate Indian sub-continent or collision event.