Mid-plate tectonics in the Indian Ocean

Abstract

Zones of faulted and folded sediments occur at and near the southern margin of the Ganges cone. The cone sediments act as sensitive indicators of crustal distortion, since they consist generally of continuous, flat‐lying sediments that are well stratified. The strike of the faults and folds is approximately 10° south of east, which is about normal to the direction of compression in the Himalayas on the north end of the Indian plate. These faults and folds lie within the NW‐SE trending zone of seismicity in the northeast Indian Ocean which has been speculated to be a nascent arc‐trench, about midway between the spreading midocean ridge on the south and the Himalayan front on the north.