‘Historical Geology of India’ is a text book for graduate and post-graduate students of geology, geophysics and other earth sciences for Indian Universities. It also caters to the universities of USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada as one or two credit courses on regional studies are included in the curriculum. Besides it can be useful to professional geologists and geophysicists working on various projects in India. The book has been specially designed to cover the course content of major Indian Universities and the approved syllabi of the University Grants Commission. This book has not been written in the classical style of what is where and when was it formed; instead there has been an attempt to base the entire history on the time control as available from latest data on high resolution stratigraphy through fossil content, radiometric dating and palaeomagnetic studies. There is a special focus on the tectonic history of the entire subcontinent through time from Precambrian times to present day.

The book is in the form of a ready reference. The subject matter of stratigraphy is full of names of formations, groups, etc. At times when we need to know about a certain formation for which we do not know the exact stratigraphic position, then we have to search the entire book, page by page, which becomes quite irritating and time consuming. To overcome this problem, the idea of arranging the different formations in an alphabetic order occurred to the author. During this process it was seen that many small formations, which are otherwise important, do not get their due representation, because they lie in company or association with much larger formations. Otherwise also stratigraphy is nothing but an orderly and chronological arrangement of different formations. In other words, we can say that stratigraphy is a language by itself, where different formations are its words. Same is the case with large number of fossils occurring in different formations. In the usual literature on the subject, it is practically impossible to find in what formation or formations a particular fossil occurs and to which fossil group it belongs. Alphabetical arrangement of fossils as shown in the list of fossils will help students and scholars to persue their task in an easier and quicker way. To arrange such a large number of fossils in an alphabetical order and to find their fossil groups was really a tough job. Still the author does not claim that all the formations and fossils occurring in the Indian stratigraphy are included in this book, and it cannot be the last word on the subject. This is more true in case of fossils, where unlimited literature is available.

Sequence stratigraphy represents a new paradigm in geology. The principal hypothesis is that stratigraphie successions may be subdivided into discrete sequences bounded by widespread unconformities. There are two parts to this hypothesis. First, it suggests that the driving forces which generate sequences and their bounding unconformities also generate predietable three-dimensional stratigraphies. In re cent years stratigraphie research guided by sequence models has brought about fundamental im provements in our understanding of stratigraphie processes and the controls of basin architecture. Sequence models have provided a powerful framework for mapping and numerieal modeling, enabling the science of stratigraphy to advance with rapid strides. This research has demonstrated the importance of a wide range of processes for the generation of cyclie sequences, including eustasy, tectonics, and orbital forcing of climate change. The main objective of this book is to document the sequence record and to discuss our current state of knowledge about sequence-generating processes.

This Memoir provides a comprehensive review of the Precambrian basins of the four Archaean nuclei of India (Dharwar, Bastar, Singhbhum and Aravalli-Bundelkhand), encompassing descriptions of the time-space distribution of sedimentary-volcanic successions, the interrelationship between tectonics and sedimentation, and basin histories. Studies of 22 basins within the framework of an international basin classification scheme deepen an understanding of the basin architecture especially for cratonic basins. Most Indian sedimentary successions formed as cratonic to extensional-margin rift and thermal-sag basins, some reflecting mantle plume movement, subcrustal heating or far-field stress. This Memoir shows that Phanerozoic plate-tectonic and sequence stratigraphic principles can be applied to the Precambrian basins of large Archaean provinces. The differences between the stratigraphic architecture of the Indian Precambrian and examples of Phanerozoic basin-fill successions elsewhere are ascribed to variable rates and intensities of the controls on accommodation and sediment supply, and changes inherent in the evolution of the hydrosphere-atmosphere and biosphere systems.