Earth Science

East looking view of the exquisite Southern Suture, Jijal, Kohistan. The MMT brings the Kohistan Island Arc (KIA) in contact with Indian Plate.

The Indian subcontinent encompasses the mountainous province of Himalaya girdling the northern border, the almost flat expanse of the Indo-Gangetic Plains in the middle, the uplands and plateaus of the Peninsular India, the narrow coastal plains along the seaboards and the alluvial plains of the Irrawaddy River that is flanked eastwards by the Shan–Karen plateaus in Myanmar. Each of these units is a structurally and lithologically contrasted and physiographically distinctive geomorphic province, having altogether different evolutionary history. They seem to make what the ancient literature describes as Bhâratvarsh belong-
ing to a mega-island or continent called Jambudweep. Within each of these provinces occur many subprovinces of geomorphic units (Chatterjee 1965; Singh 1998; Khullar 1999; Vaidyanadhan 1977, 2002; Tiwari 2003).