from Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji (GA)

Panaji, Apr 3: In a significant revelation that will impact our understanding about birth of Himalayas, joint research conducted by Indian and British Ocean scientists has determined the era of Himalaya’s formation much earlier to the assumed epoch.
 
The new findings position the era of formation of Himalaya as late as 13.9-14.4 million years onwards as against the earlier theory of eight million years.
 
The joint study has found that earth's strong outer shell - the 'lithosphere' - within the central Indian Ocean began to deform and fracture 13.9-14.4 million years ago, much earlier than previously thought.
 
“This will impact our understanding of the birth of the Himalayas and the strengthening of the Indian-Asian monsoon,” reads a prominently displayed post on www.NIO.org, a  website of India’s Premier Ocean Research Institute – National Institute of Oceanography.
 
Goa-based NIO’s Dr K S Krishna along with his British colleagues Prof Jon Bull of the University of Southampton, and Prof Roger Scrutton of Edinburgh University completed this extensive and vital study which is published in the March issue of the Geological Society of America journal Geology.
 
The study focuses on the tectonics-related deformation of the lithosphere below the central Indian Ocean. “India and Asia collided around 50 million years ago as a result of plate tectonics - the large-scale movements of the lithosphere, which continue to this day,” it reads.

Dr Krishna said that compression of the lithosphere has caused large-scale buckling and cracking. "The ocean floor has been systematically transformed into folds 100-300 kilometres long and 2,000-3,000 metres high, and there are also regularly spaced faults or cracks that are evident from seismic surveys and ocean drilling," he said.

The study paper mentions that the onset of this deformation marks the start of major geological uplift of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, some 4,000 km further to the north, due to stresses within the wider India-Asia area.
 
"The research was funded by India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and the United Kingdom's Royal Society and Natural Environment research Council (NERC),” the NIO acknowledges. 
 
“Some studies indicate that it began around 8.0-7.5 million years ago, while others have indicated that it started before 8.0 million years ago, and perhaps much earlier,” the post on the website contends.

This controversy has now been addressed by the study by Indian and British researchers who have analysed seismic profiles of 293 faults (vertical cracks in the ocean floor) in the accumulated sediments of the Bengal Fan.
 
“This is the world's largest submarine fan, a delta-shaped accumulation of land-derived sediments covering the floor of the Bay of Bengal,” it reads.

”They demonstrate that deformation of the lithosphere within the central Indian Ocean started around 13.9-14.4 million years ago, much earlier than most previous estimates. This implies considerable Himalayan uplift before 8.0 million years ago, which is when many geologists believe that the strong seasonal winds of the India-Asia monsoon first started.”