Origin and evolution of the Vindhyan basin: a geochemical perspective

The Indian Peninsula hosts several Proterozoic sedimentary basins, popularly known as the Purana basins. The Vindhyan Basin of central India, comprising —5 km thick sediment pile, is the largest among the Purana basins. The sedimentary units comprise mostly of undeformed and unmetamorphosed siliciclastic and carbonate rocks. With an initiation age of late Paleoproterozoic, the sedimentation in the Vindhyan Basin continued up to late Mesoproterozoic to early Neoproterozoic. The undeformed and unmetamorphosed nature of the sediments with a prolonged extent of sedimentation makes the Vindhyan Basin an excellent archive for geochemical and isotopic studies. The present study provides an overview of the existing geochemical, gcochronological and isotopic data for the sedimentary and volcanic rocks exposed in the Vindhyan Basin and their implications in terms of basin evolution as well as global events. (author)