INDIAN SUBCONTINENT 295 the Higher Himalayas The increasing crustal thickness is reflected in the MOHO dip, which has been estimated to be 7 –8 N under the Sub-Himalayas up to over 15 further north and the Kirthar Ranges in the west Sedimentation in these basins, which began in the Eocene, continued at least until the Oligocene Himalayan Tectonics Lithotectonic Units and Sedimentation A considerable part of the Higher Himalayan mass is the Precambrian rocks which also constitute Peninsular India An important component of the Lesser Himalayas is the Lower Palaeozoic (ca 500 Ỉ 50 Ma) dominantly per-alkaline anorogenic granites, which are popularly termed the Pan-African The sedimentary rocks suggest continuity of sedimentation in some parts in the northern shelf sea across the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary into the Lower Palaeozoic, especially during the Cambrian Records of continuity of sedimentation in these basins during the Ordovician and Silurian are, however, quite equivocal, although both periods are represented by fossils Deposition of shelf facies sediments was resumed during Carboniferous in zones of marine incursions along intracratonic rift basins that had developed in the Salt Range and in the Kashmir region The deposition in some basins continued until the Triassic There are records of contemporary volcanicity in the Pir Panjal Ranges and in other places in the east Both marine and continental sediments are correlatable with those of the Gondwana deposits which occur in parts of Nepal and the Sikkim Himalayas Continuous sedimentation from the Cambrian to the Eocene, with a number of breaks, is recorded in the Tethys belt Fossil records from different parts of this belt indicate that the extent of these breaks were not of uniform duration The closure of the Tethys Ocean by the Eocene caused a brief pause in sedimentation, which was resumed around mid-Miocene times in two important basins One in the north opened as a major intermontane (back arc) basin in the suture zone, leading to the deposition of Indus Group The Siwalik Group was deposited in the southern foreland basin that developed in front of the rising Himalayas from around 18 Ma The Siwalik Group bears rich fossil records of plants, molluscs, fishes, reptiles, and mammals The last Himalayan upheaval at around 1.7 Ma caused shifting of the depocentres to the south to build up the flood plains of the Indo-Gangetic Alluvial Plain While the closure of Tethys Sea marked the end of sedimentation in the north, the marine shelf sedimentation continued both along the eastern and western margins of the Indian continental block, in the Naga Hills and Arakan Yoma in the east and the Sulaiman The earliest Himalayan deformation coincided with the final closure of the Tethys Sea at around 50 Ma, affecting the rocks on either side of the suture zone There was a distinct southward polarity of the deformation across the Tethys to the Higher Himalayan Crystalline Complex A series of south-directed recumbent folds and thrusts were produced in the Higher Himalayas, resulting in thickening of the crust, with attendant Barrovian metamorphism, anatexis and the generation of leucogranites The southward transmission of thrust nappes by the MCT, continued till around 22 Ma This was also the time when the Barrovian metamorphic isograds underwent inversion Almost simultaneously with the piling of the foldthrust nappes in the Higher Himalayas, the Indus molasse basin in the north and the Siwalik molasse basin in the south developed as rapidly subsiding troughs Like the piggy-back thrusting model, the southward transmission of the fold-thrust nappes, which was initially along the MCT, was later carried on by MBT in the south The HFT (or MFT) which overrides the Recent sediments was the last thrust to form in the Himalayan tectonics The Himalayas represent a classic example of continent-continent collision The very similar tectonic pattern observed over the entire length of the Himalayas is primarily an expression of the impact of two continental blocks Complexities noted in the western end of the Himalayas arise because of the development of an island arc complex (Kohistan-Dras Island Complex) prior to its collision with the Karakoram microplate (possibly during the mid-Crataceous) Palaeomagnetic data indicate an initiation of the continental collision at equatorial latitudes, resulting in the progressive suturing from the Paleocene in the north-western Himalayas until the Eocene in the eastern Himalayas Continued convergence and indentation of the Indian continental block with southern Asia (or Tibet) up to the Early Miocene, resulted in the doubling of the crustal thickness over a large region of the Himalayas, the Pamir-Hindukush and Tibet The total area of the thickened crust may account for about 2000 km of crustal shortening in the entire orogen As to the origin of the Himalayan arc, palaeomagnetic observations seem to favour a steady-state model of formation of the arcuate bending of the mountain ranges due to Late Tertiary