FIELD REPORT FOR GEOLOGICAL EXCURSION

TO

DECCAN TRAPS, PUNE , INDIA

PURUSHOTTAM GUPTA I NT .MS C . E ARTH S CIENCE 6 SEMESTER

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Prof. M.Jayananda & Prof. G.V.R. Prasad for giving us the opportunity to work on Deccan Basalts during this field trip. I would also like to thank Dr.Raymond Duraiswami & all the faculty of Geology Department,Pune University for guiding us in the field . I would also like to thank our classmates for their valuable contribution and help in preparing this report.

INTRODUCTION

Global distribution of large igneous provinces (shown in black)

The beginning and the end of the Cretaceous period in India witnessed voluminous outpouring of lavas and stupendous volcanic explosions. In the early Lower Cretaceous (114-118 Ma), nearly 20,000 km area of eastern India embracing the Rajmahal Hills in Jharkhand and the Sylhat region in Meghalaya was affected by volcanism. Towards the close of the Cretaceous (61 to 69 Ma), more than 500,000 km land in western and central India was inundated by extensive floods of lavas. The eastern theatre of volcanism is known as the Rajmahal Volcanic Province and the western domain as the Deccan Volcanic Province . The Deccan Volcanism was preceded by eruption of lavas 91-95 Ma ago in offshore north-western Karnataka, giving rise to the Saint Mary's Islands. In the Rajmahal Volcanic Province the lava pile was nearly 244 m thick, while the lava succession is more than 2,500 m in the Nasik district in Maharashtra in the Deccan

Volcanic Province.

The Deccan lavas are believed to have flowed 100-300 km from their sources along the Western Ghats and in the Narmada Valley, before they froze to form stepped plateaus. Evidently, the lavas must have been very mobile and, therefore, spread far and wide, overcoming topographic impediments, filling depressions and valleys, damming rivers and streams, and burying forests and grasslands. The result of the lava floods was the evolution of flat-topped plateaus, with step-like landform called the Deccan Traps. The Deccan Volcanic Province covers Maharashtra and adjoining regions in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. One among the most remarkable volcanic provinces on earth, the Deccan Volcanic Province (DVP) is a very prominent terrane of the Indian subcontinent. The name Deccan Traps was given by E. Vrendenburg, 1908. Outcrops of the DVP in distant Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh and in Kachchh and Saurashtra in Gujarat indicate that the extent of the DVP was much larger in the past. Offshore drilling west of the Konkan Coast revealed subsurface extension of the Deccan lavas in the Arabian Sea. In some places the top of the larva lie nearly 1,500 m
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below the sea level, pointing to the foundering by faulting of the western part of the DVP. Nature of Deccan Lavas The bulk of the Deccan lavas are tholeiite basalts of simple type. In addition to basalts, the other rock types of the DVP are alkali basalts (basanite and picrite). nephelinites, carbonatites and rhyolites. occuring in minor amounts in the rifted western margin of the domain and in the Narmada Valley. In the Sahyadri Range the lava buildup comprises dominant pahoehoe flow fields. These are aggregates of many flow lobes, each of which grew by thickening through injection of melt under solidified crust . Thin irregular flows with ropy surfaces dipping in different directions, and piled up into chaotic masses, are quite common in western Maharashtra .The Bor Ghat section along the Pune-Mumbai tract provides a portrait of the variable morphology, structure and texture thick extensive flows of compact basalt, tabular flows of amygdaloidal basalt, thin irregular flows of amygdaloidal basalts, and thin irregular flows of vesicular basalt .It seems that in the early stage, viscous lavas erupted in small quantities, and later there was fissure eruption in the Mumbai-Pune region. East of Pune near Daund, a hummocky flow with toes, lobes toccatas and lava tubes characterize are terminal part of the Thakurvadi Formation. (Valdiya,2010}

Lavas of CFB
Lithosphere is below continents Continents have refractory roots In super plume events,continents fragment.Thus,CFB can be formed by plume impacts or astroroid impact. DVP lavas are enriched .Higher incompatible elements. Higher LREE & Lower HREE indicated it is not depleted. 5

Lithostratigraphy Magnetostratigraphy

On the basis of detailed studies in the Mahabaleshwar-Nasik region in Maharashtra, involving interpretation of measured sections, palaeomagnetism, analyses of major and trace elements in rocks, and determination of isotopic ratios of rare earths and strontium, a standard stratigraphy of the DVP has been established .The DVP lava succession is divisible into four subgroups comprising fifteen formations, each distinctive in its chemical types. The younger formations have wider spread - the Poladpur Formation lavas extending 800 km northwestwards to Gujarat and northwards to Madhya Pradesh, and the Mahabaleshwar lavas reaching as far south as Belgam in Karnataka. It may be stressed that the lava flows are not continuous there is pinching and swelling along their spread. There is also southward overstepping of successive units such as the Bushe Formation tapering out near Lonilind, and the Khandala Formation resting directly under the Poladpur. The upper Wai Subgroup makes up the entire southern part of the DPV, overstepping all older formation southwards, the Mahabaleshwar Formation overstepping the

Precambrian rocks of Belgam, and so on.{Valdiya,2010}

C OMMON T ERMS & T ERMINOLOGIES

Simplified definition of lava types and their morphology. Note that all the sketches are along the longitudinal section

Distribution of predominantly pahoehoe /compound and a`a/ simple flows in the Deccan Volcanic Province

Compound lava flows, defined as those lavas which are divisible into flow. units, commonly have a shield-like form and are thought to develop when the rate of extrusion of lava is relatively low. Simple lava flows, defined as those lavas which are not divisible into flow-units, are thought to form when the rate of extrusion of lava is relatively high.

All information in points is from field notes. All information in paragraphs & sketches are from various research journals.

T HE F IELD
Our field trip was mostly centered around the city of Pune within a radius of 100 km .The weather was sunny ,clear & comparatively hot with temperatures reaching upto 30C from 12 December 2012 to 15 December 2012

Day 1 Diveghat

Compound pahoehoe flow with predominant vesicles (left bottom) .Field sketch of compound pahoehoe flow unit (right top) . Sketch of part of a flow lobe at DiveGhat (right bottom). A,B, C, and D refer to the crust, zone of elongated vesicles, jointed core, and segregation veins respectively. Zeolite minerals like Stilbite & green earth also found. Horizontal vesicle banding seen

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A few metre away a dike was recorded.

Chilled margin (left)

& dike offshoot (above)

Dike is easily identifiable from difference in colour & differential jointing pattern from rest of the rock body.

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Diveghat
Site 2 Bushe formation. Hummocky flows

Photograph & Field sketch of flow lobes exposed along the road cut in Diveghat Note the termination of lobe 2 against lobe 4. Only the upper crust of lobe 4 is exposed, while the basal crust, crudely jointed and spheroidally weathered core, and part of upper crust of lobe 1 are exposed.

Exposed Bushe Fm show hummocks & spheroidal weathering.Flow direction is towards NWW

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Diveghat
Site-3
Columnar jointing seen(not very prominent).Poladpur Fm.Typical colonnade/ entablature structures seen.Simple flows have lots of columns.Some plumose jointing also seen.
Simple flows in the DVP generally can exhibit well-developed jointing patterns. These patterns are generally persistent laterally and are referred to as colonnade and entablature .Entablature refers to 0.30- to 0.50-m- thick, irregular columns that occur in the upper portions of flows. They commonly deviate from a perpendicular orientation and may form radiating patterns. In certain flows, two or more levels of entablature are seen, usually separated by platy joints .Well-developed colonnade structures are usually seen in the lower portions of most simple flows. Columns are commonly perpendicular to the base of the flow and their width ranges from 0.50 to 2.0 m. An upper colonnadezone is also present in some flows. The entablature is often glassy and sometimes shows horizontal vesicular zones. In other flows, no clear distinction between the colonnade and entablature can be made, and the entire flow shows highly irregular jointing and a fine texture. Good examples of entablature and colonnade structures are seen at southern parts of the Western Ghats(Katraj Ghat, Dive Ghat, Mahabaleshwar, etc.)(Bondre et al,2004)

Photograph & Field sketch of a simple flow exposed in Dive Ghat .A refers to the entablature, a zone of randomly oriented jointing that imparts a chaotic appearance to the zone. B refers to the colonnade, characterized by more regular columnar joints.

Entablature is probably the result of cooling caused by fresh lava being covered by water. The flood basalts probably damned rivers. When the rivers returned the water seeped down the cracks in the cooling lava and caused rapid cooling from the surface downward. The division of colonnade and entablature is the result of slow cooling from the base upward and rapid cooling from the top downward. 13

Diveghat
Site-4(site-3 + 200m)
Flow top breccias of compound flow seen.Bunline & crust also seen (red)

Sketch of small, bun-shaped pahoehoe lobes exposed along road cut

Angular rubble blocks occurring near the upper surface of a typical a`a flow exposed in Diveghat area, Pune district Photo courtesy-G.S.I.

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Purandar Fort
Site-5
Purandar is about 40kms south-east of Pune.
Perched on a gigantic mountain mass, its height above sea-level is 1398 metres and about 700 metres above the plain at its foot.

To an unaided eye, the lava flow is usually light to dark grey, fine to medium grained rock with aphyric (without identifiable minerals) to phyric (with identifiable minerals/phenocrysts) texture. Sometimes the rock contains crystals (mainly plagioclase feldspar-an aluminosilicate) as large as 2cm or even more and is called a "megacrystic basalt" or "Giant Plagioclase Basalt (GPB)".
The lowest sub-group, the Kalsubai, contains a number of horizons of lavas with abundant, large tabular plagioclase crystals termed megacrysts: these are the GPBs . Individual GPB flows are 5^10m thick and occur at distinct horizons within the eruptive sequence. GPB flows were mostly sampled in road cuts and quarries, where the flows are relatively well exposed .At these locations it is clear that the GPBs are not homogeneous, but are composed of at least two magmatic components.one aphyric or sparsely phyric and another rich in plagioclase megacrysts The GPB lavas consist of plagioclase megacrysts in a finegrained matrix. The plagioclase megacrysts are 2-50mm long.( Higgins & chandrasekharam,2007)

(Clockwise from above left)Variations in the plagioclase megacryst content within a single GPB flow. The field of view is 40 cm.Field photographs.Photomicrograph of the GPB flow 15 showing plagioclase laths.

Model for the formation of Giant Plagioclase Basalt flows, Deccan.(Higgins & chandrashekharam,2007) A possible history is as follows. (1) Plagioclase megacrysts crystallize in a convecting magma chamber just below the lava pile. (2) Currents sweep the crystals to the top of the chamber, where they accumulate as a result of their 16 buoyancy.The crystals coarsen in response to the continuous supply of hot magma.(3) New magma sweeps through the plagioclase mush, mingles and mixes, then erupts to form the GPBs.

GPB of deccan are used as Lithostratigraphy markers between bushe & poladpur fm.(Kalsubai(U) & Wai(L) supergroup) 4 places in Deccan GPb are foundM1-Jowar,M2-bhimashankar,M3-Lonavala,M4-Purandar manchar fm.Thus they are an indication of four times magma chamber replenishment.

SITE -6 ( EN

ROUTE

P U R AN DA R )

Columnar Jointing
Columnar jointing results when basalt or (other igneous rocks) cools from the outside in causing shrinkage and the development hexagonal joint structure.

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Day 2 (13.12.12)

S ITE -1 S US ROAD

18.32N,73.46E

Mid point between Wai & Kalsubai Fm. Lava toe-endogenous lava growth No new visco-elastic thrust Toe inflates to lobe Lobes coalace to form larger lobes(sheet lobes) Both hummocky & sheet pahoehoe seen.

(Clockwise from top)Road cut section. Generalized sketch of flow lobes. Sketch of a lobe exposed 18

Massive flow has dixitaxitic texture & fine gas cavity. Vesicles merge at the central crack Lots of Zeolite minerals seen as last phase in hydrothermal activity mainly okenite,stilbite,scolocite
A large vesicle hosting a variety of secondary/ cavity minerals

Blue cavenzite and heulandite,Green apophylite & stilbite. Photo courtesy-G.S.I.

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S ITE -2 K ATRAJ G HAT

18.26N,73.51E

Edge of shield (volcano) End of Bushe Fm. Dyke seen.Age is 595 My Ar/Ar Younger than Bushe No direct feeder relation N5 strike.Parallel to west coast. Sharp,jointed ,crenulated margin

(Clockwise from above)Margin offset & lava falling back seen. Dyke intruding(dolerite) the previous flow.(In Magnification) Chilled,sharp & jointed margin. In magmatic plumbing system,if outflow is not continous ,lava falls back as seen here.

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S ITE -3 A MBEGAON
(+26 Km. site2)

18 .2 5N , 73. 50 E

Differential shear

Cooling columns

Flood lava fills depression.Lava is stagnated in pool & ponded Convective current cause recling of the crust. Based on analogy of Hawaiian lava lakes.
Features formed due to the sinking of the flow-top breccias crusts into these flows molten interiors

Thick flood basalt lava flows cool conductively inward from their tops and bases, usually developing columnar jointing. Although relatively rapid cooling in such flows due to meteoric water circulation has been previously demonstrated, mixing of the surface crust with the interior as observed in active lava lakes has not been shown. The breccia-cored rosettes described are restricted to the simple flows from this province, which tend to be single cooling units of greater spatial dimensions than typical pahoehoe lobes constituting the compound pahoehoe flows . Several simple flows are characterized as rubbly pahoehoe i.e.,flows with extensively brecciated flow-top crusts.(Sheth et al,2011)

Differential shear lead to platy joint like structure

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S ITE -4 LONAVALA

18 .4 1N , 73 .2 3E

We are looking here.

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S ITE -5
Transitional flowtop breccias Flow banding seen.Kinkery type Tooth paste lava(A transitional type of lava that develops within flow fields when the lava has cooled sufficiently to have a high viscosity and when the flow is advancing slowly.) Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility

Toothpaste lava, an important basalt structural type which illustrates the transition from pahoehoe to aa,. Its transitional features stem from a viscosity higher than that of pahoehoe and a rate of flow slower than that of aa. Viscosity can be quantified by the limited settling of olivine phenocrysts and rate of flow by field observations related to the low-angle slope on which the lava flowed.(Rowland & walker ,1987)
Characteristic features of toothpaste lava. Direction of flow is left to right. Arrows approximately I, 0.5, and 0.01 m long in a, b, and c, respectively. a Toothpaste tongue issuing from curved bocca. S I-S2, lateral shear zone evidenced by imbricate shearing and clinker. Note how longitudinal lineations maintain same spacing along length of tongue. b Cut-away view showing pulse buckles (Pb) and pulse flaps (PjJ, features of discontinuous extrusion. Note how vesicles deformed because crust was retarded relative to underlying lava. c Close up showing spines pointing back toward bocca.(Top)Field image.

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In Hawaii, this transitional morphological type is found at greater distance from the vent and has a rough, hackly crust that deforms into broken plates or ropy folds. In case of toothpaste lava, the ridges are formed perpendicular to the flow direction and the surface grooves and striations on the surface are parallel to the flow direction.. Moreover, it is not clear as to how an extremely viscous lava type like toothpaste lava (viscosity: 600012,000 Pas) could be generated locally in a predominantly pahoehoe flow.(Duraiswami,2009)

D AY -3 (14.12.12) S ITE -1 B HADGAON TO S UPE (120 KM FROM P UNE )

1 8. 25N ,7 4.1 9E

Eastern Bushe(terminal) Pahoehoe to aa conversion Pipe vesicles along with breccias seen. Chemically the fm. is Bushebut physically transformed Flow correlation after 120km Rubbly pahoehoe Hulendite zone(Ca,Mg Zeolite)

The pahoehoe flow exposed in the Morgaon area probably represents the terminal parts of a larger flow field belonging to the Bushe Formation16. It is envisaged that the lavas belonging to the Bushe Formation could have erupted close to the crest line of the Western Ghats near Lonavala and the lavas could have travelled eastwards to the extent of >140 km through a complex network of interconnected lobes constituting distinct flow-fields. The earlier extent of the Bushe Formation was mapped as ending a short distance east of Pune city.However, the present investigation and presence of pahoehoe east of Daund and near Indapur, could indicate that the Bushe Formation could be more extensive than previously mapped. The presence of evidence of a lava lobe preserving the evidence of pulsed inflation in the terminal parts of the hummocky flow is significant. Based on this evidence it can be concluded that pulsed inflation could be a phenomenon common in the terminal parts of some of the hummocky pahoehoe flows from the Deccan Trap and can account for some of the intriguing geometry in the pahoehoe flows.(Duraiswami,2009) Museum quality mineral samples found here.

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S ITE -2 K UKDI RIVER

Ash beds from Java(Toba caldera) Highly reworked by local people

Rhyolitic tephra predating late Pleistocene (26,00012,000 yr B.P.) alluvium was recognized in Quaternary sediments of the Son Valley, north-central India in and later identified as having been derived from Toba, northern Sumatra The Toba ash occurs extensively in the Indian subcontinent and marks a ca. 74,000-yr-old event. In the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean it is about 10 cm thick, whereas in several alluvial basins, it is usually 1-3 m thick. The latter occurs in a partly reworked state but as nearly chemically pure first-cycle sediments, The ash has a broad northwesterly dispersal pattern. Samples of ash from the Indian subcontinent compare closely with the Youngest (74,000 yr B.P.) Toba Tuff and the deep-sea Toba ash in bulk chemical composition, REE signature, and bubble-wall shard morphology. However, a more proximally located and thicker (2-5 m) ash-bed, from the alluvial basins in the gneissic area and close to east coast, has a lower magnitude negative Eu anomaly, possibly because of minor contamination by feldspathic silt. Quarternary sediments in the central Narmada and middle Son basins contain rich late and middle Pleistocene mammalian and cultural records. Based on the presence of the ash layer marker and stratigraphic relations, late Pleistocene sediments within the subcontinent can be correlated with those from central India and the deep sea. (Acharyya and Basu,1993) Middle Palaeolithic archaeological assemblages at Jwalapuram in Kurnool district, Andhra Pradesh, associated with 2.55 in thick layer of volcanic ash with glass shards representing the 74 ka BP Youngest Toba Tuff, indicate that humans were present in the Indian continent . The Stone Age people must have braved the rains of volcanic dust that fell in Maharashtra, adjoining Andhra Pradesh and in the Narmada and Son valleys in Madhya Pradesh.(Valdiya,2010)

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26

S ITE -3 J EJURI

18.16N,74.08E

Debris flow of alluvial formed under gravity Unconformity b/w Deccan & Quaternary. Metrionic diagenesis Nodular & concretionary calcrete Cementation by percolation Near source

SITE -4
16,500500 yr bp Upper Pleistocene Mud flow overlain by water deposit. Sheet flood deposit

Gastropod shells

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D AY -4 (15.12.12) S ITE -1 SHIRVAL 1 8 . 0 5 N , 7 3 . 3 9 E

Ambenali flow
1-2 metre thick flow top breccias seen with massive core. Crust occurs as enclaves within cores. Rosette pattern seen Flow bottom breccias also seen No time gap.

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Flow top breccia

Rosette cooling pattern

Flow bottom breccia

general road cut section

SITE -2 MAHABALESHWAR A RTHUR SEAT

17.58N,73.38E

Savitri river section Poladpur to ambenali transition 600m Ambenali to mahabaleshwar transition 800m Only place in the world showing triangular facets with flat topped mountain together.

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Triangular peaks to the left & flat topped mountains to the right. Formed due to post collisional stress buildup.

SITE -3 LATERITE DEPOSITS

Typical textbook illustration of a laterite profile . Rock structure is usually preserved in the pallid and mottled zones indicating that these zones consist of weathered rock in situ with no volume alteration.

In the Deccan region of western India ferricrete duricrusts, usually described as laterites, cap some basalt summits east of the Western Ghats escarpment, basalts of the low-lying Konkan Plain to its west, as well as some sizeable isolated basalt plateaus rising from the Plain. The duricrusts are iron-cemented saprolite with vermiform hollows, but apart from that have little in common with the common descriptions of laterite. The classical laterite profile is not present. In particular there are no pisolitic concretions, no or minimal development of concretionary crust, and the pallid zone, commonly assumed to be typical of laterites, is absent. A relatively thin, non-indurated saprolite usually lies between the duricrust and fresh basalt. The duricrust resembles the classical laterite of Angadippuram in Kerala (southwestern India), but is much harder. The High Deccan duricrusts capping the basalt summits in the Western Ghats have been interpreted as residuals from a continuous (but now largely destroyed) laterite blanket that represents in situ transformation of the uppermost lavas, and thereby as marking the original top of the lava pile.(Ollier and Sheth,2008) In India ,near sea-level laterites have age of 20 my & far from sea have age of 30-40 my Help in drainage pattern origin.

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REFERENCES
1. Acharyya, S. K., and Basu, P. K. (1993). Toba ash on the Indian subcontinent and its implications for correlation of late Pleistocene alluvium.Quaternary Research , 1019. 2. Bondre N R, Duraiswami R A and Dole G 2004 Morphology and emplacement of flows from the Deccan volcanic province, India; Bull. Volcanol. 3. Bondre N R, Duraiswami R A, Dole G, Phadnis V M and Kale V S 2000 Inflated pahoehoe lavas from the Sangamner area of the western Deccan volcanic province; Curr. Sci.1004-1007 4. Bondre N R, Duraiswami R A and Dole G 2004a Morphology and emplacement of flows from the Deccan volcanic province, India; Bull. Volcanol. 29-45 5. Bondre N R, Duraiswami R A and Dole G 2004b A brief comparison of lava flows from the Deccan volcanic province and the Columbia-Oregon Plateau flood basalts: Implications for models of flood basalt emplacement. In: Magmatism in India through Time (eds) H C Sheth and K Pande; Proc. Ind. Acad. Sci. (Earth Planet. Sci.) 113 pp 809-817 6. Duraiswami R A, Dole G and Bondre N R 2003 Slabby pahoehoe from the western Deccan volcanic province: Evidence for incipient pahoehoe-aa transitions; J. Volcanol. Geotherm. Res. 121 195-217 7. Duraiswami R A ,2009 Pulsed inflation in the hummocky lava flow near Morgaon,

western Deccan Volcanic Province and its significance Curr Sci.

structural type transtional between pahoehoe and aa. Bull Vocanol 49:631641
14. Ollier C D, Sheth H C 2008The High Deccan duricrusts of India and their significance for

the laterite issue