1 s2.0 S0012825208000196 Main

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Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145 166

www.elsevier.com/locate/earscirev
Gondwana to Asia: Plate tectonics, paleogeography and the biological

connectivity of the Indian sub-continent from the Middle Jurassic
through latest Eocene (16635 Ma)
Jason R. Ali , Jonathan C. Aitchison
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, PR China
Received 15 May 2007; accepted 16 January 2008
Available online 16 February 2008
Abstract
Using the most up-to-the-date information available, we present a considerably revised plate tectonic and paleogeographic model for the Indian
Ocean bordering continents, from Gondwana's Middle Jurassic break-up through to India's collision with Asia in the middle Cenozoic. The
landmass framework is then used to explore the sometimes complex and occasionally counter-intuitive patterns that have been observed in the
fossil and extant biological records of India, Madagascar, Africa and eastern Eurasia, as well those of the more distal continents.
Although the paleogeographic model confirms the traditional view that India became progressively more isolated from the major landmasses
during the Cretaceous and Paleocene, it is likely that at various times minor physiographic features (principally ocean islands) provided causeways
and/or stepping-stone trails along which land animals could have migrated to/from the sub-continent. Aside from a likely link (albeit broken by
several marine gaps) to Africa for much of this time (it is notable, that the present-day/recent biota of Madagascar indicates that the ancestors of
five land-mammal orders, plus bats, crossed the N 400-km-wide Mozambique Channel at different times in the Cenozoic), it is possible that the
Kerguelen Plateau connected India and AustraliaAntarctica in the mid-Cretaceous (approximately 11590 Ma). Later, the SeychellesMascarene
Plateau and nearby elevated sea-floor areas could have allowed faunas to pass between southern India and Madagascar in the Late Cretaceous,
from around 8565 Ma, with an early Cenozoic extension to this path forming as a result of the Reunion hot-spot trace islands growing on the
ocean floor to the SSW of India. The modelling also suggests that India's northward passage towards Asia, with eventual collision at 35 Ma,
involved the NE corner of the sub-continent making a glancing contact with Sumatra, followed by Burma from ~ 57 Ma (late Paleocene) onwards,
a scenario which is compatible with the fossil record indicating that IndiaAsia faunal exchanges began occurring at about this time. Finally, we
contend that a number of biologically-based direct terrestrial migration routes that have been proposed for last 15 m.y. of the Cretaceous (Asia to
India; Antarctica to Madagascar and/or India) can probably be dismissed because the marine barriers, likely varying from N1000 up to 2500 km,
were simply too wide.
2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: biogeography; India; Madagascar; Tethys; Gondwana; Africa; Asia
Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
India's biological connectivity in the Cretaceous and Paleogene: conflicting views of the biogeographers
New information regarding the plate tectonic model for India, Neotethys and the Indian Ocean . . . . .
13285 Ma position of IndiaMadagascarSeychelles relative to Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Possible role of ocean volcano chains and plateaus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 2857 8248; fax: +852 2517 6912.
E-mail address: jrali@hku.hk (J.R. Ali).
0012-8252/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2008.01.007
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146
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146
J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166
6.
Nature of Neotethys: insights following seismic tomography studies of the mantle beneath the Indian OceanSouth Asia region and
geological investigations of the IndiaAsia suture zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7. Shape and size of India prior to its collision with Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8. Motion history of India following its break-up with Madagascar 8590 Ma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9. Position of Eurasia in the Late Cretaceousearly Cenozoic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10. Timing of collision between India and the Tibet part of Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
11. Possibility of continental slivers east of India, north of Australia in the Cretaceous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12. Global and sub-regional sea level considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13. Revised paleogeographic model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13.1. Gondwana break-up and dispersal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13.2. Arrival of India at Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
14. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
15. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1. Introduction
One of the great conundrums faced by biogeographers and
paleontologists concerns the Indian sub-continent's biological
connectivity with the other Indian Ocean-rimming landmasses
(Fig. 1) during the Cretaceous and Paleogene, 145.523.0 Ma
(Fig. 2). Since the introduction of plate tectonic theory in the
1960s, the geological community has almost universally
regarded India as being a relatively recent component of Asia,
with it originally forming part of the Gondwana super-continent
in the middle Mesozoic. Thus with India apparently experiencing a prolonged period of isolation prior to it docking with Asia
it might be anticipated that the flora and fauna hosted by the
continent had evolved into a distinct assemblage, perhaps as
unique as that on present-day Australia (e.g., Berra, 1998; Cox
and Moore, 2005, Table 9.2). As explained below, however,
integration of the plate tectonic and biological models for India
back to the Early Cretaceous has not been simple, and a
considerable range of views has been published (Table 1).
In detail, the traditional plate tectonic model involves India
occupying a central location in Gondwana throughout the
Paleozoic and much of the Mesozoic (see Smith and Hallam,
1970; Norton and Sclater 1979, as well as Fig. 3 for a reconstruction of the continent at ~180 Ma). Break-up of the supercontinent started in the Middle Jurassic (~170 Ma), following the
rifting of South AmericaAfrica from MadagascarSeychelles
IndiaAntarcticaAustralia (e.g., Besse and Courtillot, 1988;
Jokat et al., 2003; Schettino and Scotese, 2005). In Early
Cretaceous times, ~132 Ma based on marine magnetic anomaly
data (Powell et al., 1988; Mller et al., 2000; Brown et al., 2003),
AustraliaAntarctica began to drift away from IndiaMadagascar. In the Late Cretaceous, 9085 Ma, IndiaSeychelles
separated from Madagascar (Storey et al., 1995; Torsvik et al.,
2000). At this time, the centre of the Indian craton lay ~30S; the
same point now sits on the Tropic of Cancer, 23.5N, some
6000 km to the north. In the Late Cretaceous and Paleocene, the
sub-continent migrated rapidly northwards (e.g., Besse and
Courtillot, 1988, 2002; Acton, 1999) eventually colliding with
the part of Asia now known as Tibet in the Paleogene, at 50
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149
150
151
152
154
155
155
156
157
158
159
161
162
162
55 Ma (e.g., Lee and Lawver, 1995; Rowley, 1996; Hodges, 2000;

DeCelles et al., 2002; Leech et al., 2005; Najman, 2006; Zhu et al.,
2004). With this scenario, we can expect India to have
experienced ~30 million years of biological isolation, with a
long period of limited connectivity back to the Early Cretaceous.
Regarding India's convergence with Asia, the widely accepted
model (Fig. 4a) involved the present-day craton with some form
of extension to the north (together Greater India see below).
The northern boundary of India was a passive margin, similar to
the Atlantic borders of North America and West Africa, north of
which lay oceanic crust of Neotethys. As India travelled towards
Asia, Neotethys was consumed beneath the Lhasa Block in a
setting similar to the present-day Sunda arc south of central and
western Indonesia (Fig. 1; see Hall, 2002). Such a scenario is
regarded as the one oceantwo continent convergence model.
2. India's biological connectivity in the Cretaceous and
Paleogene: conflicting views of the biogeographers
Curiously, accommodating the fossil and present-day biotic
records of India with the plate tectonic sequence described above
has led to serious differences of opinion (e.g., Table 1 and the
responsereply chain of Briggs, 1989; Patterson and Owen, 1991;
Thewissen and McKenna, 1992; Rage and Jaeger, 1995;
McKenna, 1995). The crux of the matter is simple. Some
biogeographers have concluded that between India leaving
Madagascar and arriving at Asia the shield-shaped sub-continent
spent an extended period isolated (Fig. 5a), acting as an ark for
tens of millions of years (e.g., McKenna, 1995; Hedges, 2003;
Bossuyt et al., 2006). Such a position corresponds with the
standard geological view, i.e., for a long time the block was
surrounded by wide deep oceans which would have severely
impeded the flow of genetic material to/from the craton. Others,
however, have argued that India's biological linkages with the
other Indian Ocean continents were high for most of the
Cretaceous and Paleogene implying its close proximity to one
or more of the other landmasses. To this end, some biogeographers, based on DNA studies of present-day frogs, have
proposed a relaxed scenario for Gondwana's break-up (Van
147
Fig. 1. Simplified geographical and tectonic map of the present-day Indian Ocean basin. The yellow colouring associated with the landmasses commonly extends a
short distance seaward beyond the block outlines to the geological edges of the continental and island arc areas. Thick green lines define the plate boundaries.
Orange/buff colours are the oceanic slabs (I, II and III, at 1325 km depth) that were imaged in the mantle following the seismic tomography study of Van der Voo et al.
(1999). As a consequence, if they were plotted on the Earth's surface the latitudinal width of these bands would reduce by about 25%. Dark grey lenses are the
LaccadiveChagosReunion and Ninety East Ridge hot-spot traces. The two tracks, which for all intents and purposes are parallel and young southwards, record the
northward motion of the western Indo-Australia plate over the Reunion and Kerguelen hot-spots, as in J.T. Wilson's (1963) classic proposal. The Kergeulen Plateau is
also shown. In the SE Asia and western equatorial Pacific regions not all of the plate boundaries are depicted see Hall (2002) for the details of this area. Note also
that a series of small islands and shallow submerged ground (Providence BankAmirante Ridge) is present between northern Madagascar and the western tip of the
Seychelles (see Todal and Edholm, 1998, Fig. 1; GEBCO, 2003), but these are not portrayed here (see Fig. 6 for the details of this area).
Bocxlaer et al., 2006, p. 4). Others have gone as far as presenting

radical plate tectonic scenarios (Fig. 5bd) to facilitate the floral
and faunal exchange (e.g., Briggs, 1989, 2003; Chatterjee and
Scotese, 1999; Case, 2002; Rage, 2003). Indeed a small number
of workers (e.g., Patterson and Owen, 1991; McCarthy, 2005)
have grasped upon the moderate to high levels of connectivity as
evidence in support of the somewhat suspect (e.g., Cox, 1990;
Hallam, 1994; Ali, 2006; Briggs, 2006; see also Hallam, 1984)
Expanding Earth hypothesis. The key problem with the
biologically-revised plate models is that they ignore the earth
science community's knowledge of the various Indian Ocean
basins and how they have evolved since ~180 Ma. This has been
built upon numerous geophysical surveys and dredging campaigns, and several decades of scientific drilling (Deep Sea
Drilling Project, 19661983; Ocean Drilling Program, 1983
2003; the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, which was
established in 2004, has not yet operated in the Indian Ocean).
This has resulted, for example, in the Global Atlas of the Ocean
Basins (GEBCO, 2003) and the Map of the Indian Ocean
(Sgoufin et al., 2004). We thus consider the strongly

alternative plate tectonic hypotheses to be profoundly unsound.
3. New information regarding the plate tectonic model for
India, Neotethys and the Indian Ocean
Geological and geophysical investigations reported over the
last decade suggest, however, that the Neotethyan and Indian
Ocean basins had an appreciably more complex evolution than
is the case with the model outlined above. Thus reviewing the
new information and drawing it together into a revised plate
tectonic/paleogeographic scenario might provide insights that
permit the various proposals for India's bio-connectivity during
the Cretaceous and Cenozoic to be reconciled, or at least better
understood. In this context, a full appreciation of the following
plate tectonic and geological elements appears critical:
1. 13285 Ma position of IndiaMadagascarSeychelles
relative to Africa.
148
only ~430 km apart (Fig. 1; GEBCO, 2003). Although such a

seaway would have hampered the migration of land animals to
and from Africa, it is clear that the barrier was not insurmountable
as evidenced by the present-day populations of mammals,
freshwater fish, amphibians, reptiles etc, the ancestors of which
are all considered to have arrived on the island at various times in
the Cenozoic (e.g., Simpson, 1940; Yoder et al., 1996, 2003;
McCall, 1997 and references therein; Martin, 2000; Vences et al.,
2001, 2004; Poux et al., 2005; Masters et al., 2006; Stankiewicz
et al., 2006; Yoder and Nowak, 2006). Raxworthy et al. (2002)
also demonstrated that some of Madagascar's ancient chameleons
populated other landmasses in the SW Indian Ocean by overwater dispersal. It therefore appears that the migration of
terrestrial animals to and from the mini-continent/island (de
Wit, 2003) has been possible for much of Madagascar's history,
and thus by inference presumably to India until the two separated
in the Late Cretaceous, 85 to 90 Ma.
5. Possible role of ocean volcano chains and plateaus
Fig. 2. Simplified JurassicCretaceousCenozoic (2000 Ma) time-scale based

on Gradstein et al. (2005). To the right, with the blue profile, is the smoothed sea
level history chart of Gradstein et al. (2005), which is based heavily on Hallam
(1984). The sea level curve of Miller et al. (2005) for 0100 Ma is superimposed
and shown with a red dash line. In both cases, numerous short-term fluctuations
(104106 years), during which time sea level may have dropped a few to several
tens of metres, are not depicted (see Section 12).
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Possible role of ocean volcano chains and plateaus.

Nature of the Neotethyan Ocean.
Shape and size of India prior to its collision with Asia.
Motion history of India following its break-up with
Madagascar 9085 Ma.
Position of Eurasia in the Late Cretaceousearly Cenozoic.
Timing of collision between India and the Tibet part of Asia.
Possibility of continental slivers existing east of India and
north of Australia in the Cretaceous.
Global and sub-regional sea level considerations.
4. 13285 Ma position of IndiaMadagascarSeychelles

relative to Africa
The break-up of West and East Gondwana (starting ~175 Ma
according to Schettino and Scotese, 2005) led to true ocean floor
forming between eastern-southern Africa and Madagascar
Antarctica in the Somali and Mozambique basins (Coffin and
Rabinowitz, 1987; Jokat et al., 2003; Sgoufin et al., 2004;
Rabinowitz and Woods, 2006). Madagascar, together with
SeychellesIndiaAntarcticaAustralia, migrated N1400 km
SSE from its original site east of Tanzania/Kenya before
spreading in the Somali Basin ceased at 120116 Ma (Sgoufin
et al., 2004; Schettino and Scotese, 2005; Rabinowitz and Woods,
2006). However, the final physical separation between Africa and
Madagascar was appreciably smaller than this figure; today, the
nearest shorelines either side of the Mozambique Channel are
A fundamental tenet of plate tectonic theory is that oceanic

lithosphere is added to the Earth's surface at spreading centre
ridges (e.g., Mid-Atlantic Ridge, East Pacific Rise) and recycled
back into the mantle along deep trenches (e.g., MarinaBonin
trench, western Pacific; Sunda trench south of Indonesia; Peru
Chile Trench west of South America). The former may be 2.5
3.0 km below sea level, the latter 611 km deep. As oceanic
lithosphere moves away from its spreading centre, it slowly
cools, becomes denser and thus subsides so that 50 million
years after it formed it may sit ~ 5 km below sea level (e.g.,
Parsons and Sclater, 1977; Dumoulin et al., 2001; Wei and
Sandwell, 2006). From the perspective of the terrestrial biota it
makes no difference whether the seabed is covered by 2.5 km or
5 km of water it is uninhabitable. However, volcanic plateaus
can grow on the ocean floor thereby locally raising the seabed,
sometimes to above sea level. It is widely believed that such
features develop above mantle plumes (Wilson, 1963), some
of which possibly emanate from the coremantle boundary.
Thus it is possible for ocean islands to form, as is the case with
Iceland, Hawaii, Azores, Canaries, Galapagos etc, and for these
constructs to provide a refuge, albeit a geologically temporary
one (see Coffin, 1992) for land animals to exist in the middle of
the ocean basins far from the main continents.
In the preceding section we summarized the close physical
connection between India and Africa via Madagascar up until
~ 85 Ma. It is also possible that the sub-continent had
connections with the landmasses to the south and east for the
middle part of the Cretaceous. Although AustraliaAntarctica
migrated away from the sub-continent ~ 132 Ma, at about
118 Ma the Kerguelen large igneous province (Fig. 1) began
forming on the floor of the SE Indian Ocean. Today, almost the
entire plateau lies a kilometer or more below sea level.
However, several holes drilled into the upper parts of the
edifice during Ocean Drilling Program Legs 119, 120 and 183
indicate that substantial parts of the terrain were sub-aerially
exposed until 9590 Ma (Coffin, 1992; Frey et al., 2000; Coffin
et al., 2000; Mohr et al., 2002). Thus the Kerguelen platform
149
Table 1
Summary of some of the biological data that has been used to evaluate paleobiogeographic linkages between the Indian Ocean continents for the Jurassic through
Cenozoic. D/F refers to whether the proposed connection is based on the DNA signature of extant life forms or fossils
Animals
DNA/fossils
Reference
Ranid frogs
Some Eocene mammals
Nasikabatrachidae frog family
D
F
D and taxonomy
Bossuyt and Milinkovitch (2001)

Thewissen et al. (2001)
Biju and Bossuyt (2003)
Ghazij Fm mammals
Freshwater gastropods
Some Eocene mammals
Lower Eocene mammals
F
D
F
F
Clyde et al. (2003)

Khler and Glaubrecht (2007)
Thewissen et al. (2001)
Sahni (2006) review
Dinosaurs and mammals, western India

Boid snakes
Anguid lizards
Iguanid lizards
Northern frogs
F
F
F
F
F
Jaeger et al. (1989)

Rage (2003) review
Reviews by Briggs (2003) and Rage (2003)
Rage (2003) review
Prasad and Rage (1991)
Abelisauridae dinosaurs
Sudamericid mammals
Marsupial tooth
F
F
F
Sampson et al. (1998)

Krause et al. (1997)
Krause (2001)
Cichlid fishes (freshwater)

Carnivores
Frogs
Lemurs
D
D
D
D
Vences et al. (2001)

Yoder et al. (2003), Poux et al. (2005)
Vences et al. (2004)
Poux et al. (2005); Yoder and Nowak (2006) review
Terecs
Nesomyine rodents
Dwarf hippopotamuses
D
D
F

Masters et al. (2006) review
Various tetrapod families
Chatterjee and Scotese (1999); Briggs (2003) review
India as a biotic ferry (present-day

endemic/Gondwana-origin forms)
IndiaAsia connection from ~55 Ma
Late Cretaceous (6570 Ma) Asian

forms into India
Late Cretaceous (80 Ma) Southern route

(MadagascarAntarcticaS. America)
Late Cretaceous/Cenozoic Africa

to Madagascar connection
Late Cretaceous/Cenozoic Africa to

Madagascar connection
India close to Africa during

the Late Cretaceous
could have provided a stepping-stone for migrations between

IndiaSeychellesMadagascar and AustraliaAntarctica for
much of the mid-Cretaceous and possibly for some time
beyond.
Similar arguments can also be made for both the Seychelles
Mascarene Plateau region in the Late Cretaceousearly
Paleogene and the ChagosLaccadive Ridge, SSW of India
(Fig. 6), in the Paleocene and Eocene. In both localities, large
quantities of volcanic rock were erupted onto almost zero-age
ocean floor (see marine anomaly patterns in Todal and Edholm,
1998 Fig. 1). Assuming a simple Parsons and Sclater (1977)
ocean floor subsidence model (see above), it is entirely
conceivable that the ground which today is in 2 km or less of
water was then sub-aerially exposed. Ocean Drilling Program
Leg 115 (1987) recovered basaltic rocks that were erupted very
near to or above sea level on both the Mascarene Plateau (Site
707; 07 32.72N, 59 01.01E; early Paleocene) and the middle
section of the ChagosLaccadive Ridge (Site 715; 05 04.89N,
7349.88E; early Eocene) (Backman and Duncan., 1988;
Simmons, 1990). Also, unpublished drilling and seismic investigation data from areas offshore of the western Seychelles
(Reith Bank, Owen Bank, Seagull Shoals) indicate that

Maastrichtian lavas were erupted above sea level (C. MatchetteDownes, pers. comm., 2007). Based on seismic correlations from
this area, Matchette-Downes considers that slightly younger
(CretaceousPaleogene boundary age) basalts may have been
sub-aerially emplaced across an even wider part of the Seychelles
Plateau region. It is thus possible that during the Maastrichtian
Ypresian a not inconsequential landmass occupied the ground
between northern Madagascar and southwest India.
6. Nature of Neotethys: insights following seismic tomography
studies of the mantle beneath the Indian OceanSouth Asia
region and geological investigations of the IndiaAsia
suture zone
Decades of seismic investigations have enabled the velocity
of earthquake waves travelling through the mantle to be known
with considerable precision. A corollary of this has made it
possible for seismically anomalous volumes within the mantle
to be identified using seismic tomography. High velocity
zones are interpreted as cold slabs of oceanic lithosphere that
150
have subducted into the mantle; certain low-velocity zone forms

indicate high-temperature plumes, a number of which can be
linked to ocean island volcano chains, for instance Hawaii and
Iceland (Zhao, 2004).
Van der Voo et al. (1999) used seismic tomography to
identify several extensive high-velocity zones (south to north
labeled Slabs IIII see Fig. 1) beneath the Indian Ocean and
the region of Asia to the north. Based upon a plate tectonic
model proposed by Allegre et al. (1984), they suggested that
two separate ocean slabs (III and II) were consumed as India
advanced north towards its collision site with southern Tibet. As
will be seen below, such a proposal has a major implication
requiring an additional subduction system, specifically an intraoceanic arc, to have been present within Neotethys between
India and Asia.
If the tomography model is correct, one might therefore
predict that remnants of the subduction system are present in the
IndiaEurasia collision belt in southern Tibet and northern India
(Indus RiverYarlung Tsangpo suture zone). For some time,
intra-oceanic arc terranes had been identified in the western part
of the suture zone (e.g., Windley, 1983, Fig. 1). In the east,
however, it was thought that the suture was not so complex,
with it simply marking a continentcontinent collision boundary with remnants of the mid-ocean floor to Neotethys being
preserved (Girardeau et al., 1985). More recent work, however,
indicates that many of the ophiolites in the eastern part of the
suture zone, in particular those associated with the Dazhuqu
terrane, actually formed part of a Neotethyan island arc
(Aitchison et al., 2000, 2004). It therefore appears that fragments of the supra-subduction zone system which helped recycle back into the mantle oceanic Slab III of Van der Voo et al.
(1999) are preserved in southern Tibet (Fig. 4b). The paleomagnetic investigation of Abrajevitch et al. (2005) concluded
that the Dazhuqu ophiolite formed at a sub-equatorial setting,
which in the Late Cretaceousearly Cenozoic was well over
1600 km south of the Lhasa block.
The implications for having a NWESE oriented island arc
across the equatorial and low northerly latitudes of Neotethys
(Van der Voo et al., 1999, Figs. 5 and 1) are important, if not
profound. Using present-day island arcs as a guide (e.g., Lesser
Antilles, eastern Caribbean plate; Marianas, eastern Philippine
Sea Plate) we might expect volcanic islands to be spaced every
30 to 90 km apart. Thus the Dazhuqu arc, may have permitted
some Asian faunas (possibly from both Iran and western
Indonesia) to be present in the middle of Neotethys during the
Cretaceousearly Cenozoic. Also, just prior to India's collision
with the arc in the late Paleocene, the exchange of terrestrial
floras and faunas between the two may have been possible.
7. Shape and size of India prior to its collision with Asia
If in the geological past India acted as a biotic raft, it is useful
to know how big such an entity might once have been. Presently, India comprises two elements structurally disrupted
Indian rocks in the Himalayan chain (250- to 300-km-wide,
N 2500-km-long) form the world's most spectacular fold-andthrust belt, south of which lies the geologically stable cratonic
part of the continent. Even before the emergence of plate

tectonic theory in the mid-1960s, mobilists within the
geological community had long speculated that India had
previously been appreciably larger. Emile Argand (1924) and
Arthur Holmes (1965) believed that the elevated parts of
Eurasia, in the Himalayas and Tibet, were a direct consequence
of northern India under-thrusting/under-rafting the region.
Following the introduction of plate tectonic theory, and the
subsequent efforts to understand mountain building processes,
numerous attempts were made to deduce India's shape and size
prior to its collision with Asia. A number of approaches were
used including (1) structural shortening estimates of Indian rock
sequences in the Himalaya (e.g., DeCelles et al., 2002), (2)
Fig. 3. Gondwana at 180 Ma (Toarcian stage of the Late Jurassic), 510 Ma prior
to the start of its break-up, which commenced with the separation of Africa
South America (West Gondwana) from MadagascarSeychellesIndiaAntarcticaAustralia (East Gondwana). Note that the size and shape of Greater India
is controlled by the Wallaby (W.P.) and Zenith Plateaus (Z.P.) and the Wallaby
Zenith Fracture Zone (red dash line) which today are located offshore of western
Australia in the SE Indian Ocean (see Ali and Aitchison, 2005). The image was
constructed using the GMAP program (Torsvik and Smethurst, 1999). The
equator and Greenwich meridian are shown with red lines.
151
Fig. 4. Traditional (a) and revised (b) models describing the Late CretaceousCenozoic passage of India towards the Tibet part of Asia (approximately SN profile). The
older scheme has a relatively simple Tethyan Ocean plate configuration, that is, two-continents/one-ocean. In the revised model, Neotethys comprises two oceanic plates
separated by north-dipping subduction zone. It is derived from paleomagnetic and magnetic anomaly based India and Asia motion models, geological studies of the
IndiaAsia suture zone rocks in Tibet, and geophysical imaging of the mantle (down to ~ 2000 km) which has enable subducted oceanic slabs to be identified and, by
inference, the approximate position of the island arc system that consumed it. Also, in this west-viewing profile, we can assume that at least one narrow raft of NW
Australia-derived continental crust was present (it would project out of the page) for part of the Cretaceous before it likely collided with western SE Asia see text.
Taken as a whole, the additional tectonic elements must have potentially increased India's biological connectivity with the other continents, principally East and SE Asia.
paleomagnetically based fill-the-gap proposals (e.g., Besse

and Courtillot, 1988; Klootwijk et al., 1992; Patzelt et al.,
1996), and (3) the refitting of India back into Gondwana (e.g.,
Powell et al., 1988; Lee and Lawver, 1995). Some workers
combined different pieces of information (e.g., Dewey et al.,
1989; Treloar and Coward, 1991).
The lack of consensus regarding the shape and size of Greater
India, reflected in the large number of proposals, led the authors
to comprehensively review the issue and to also seek a definitive
solution (Ali and Aitchison, 2005). Using detailed bathymetric
and sea-surface satellite altimetry databases for the SE Indian
Ocean, together with reconstructions of Late Jurassic Gondwana, they were able to constrain the extent of Greater India, the
northern appendage to the sub-continent having its ghost
preserved in the Perth Abyssal Plain southwest of the Wallaby
Zenith Fracture Zone (Fig. 3). A critical feature of the model
concerns the northern edge of the Indian craton. As the subcontinent and western Australia rotated away from one another,
the WallabyZenith Fracture Zone formed a transform fault,
thus there would have been only a very narrow (presumably 10
20 km wide) oceancontinent transition zone delimiting the subcontinent's northern margin (critically, it was not thinned and
extended). In summary, prior to collision the India block
extended ~ 950 km north of the current north-central part of the

craton, decreasing to ~ 500 and ~ 600 km respectively ahead of
the Eastern and Western syntaxes. With respect to past proposals, the pre-collision dimensions of India as deduced by Ali
and Aitchison (2005) were neither very small (e.g., Dewey et al.,
1989, Gnos et al., 1997, Gaina et al., 2003) nor very large (e.g.,
Klootwijk et al., 1992; Rotstein et al., 2001; Lawver and
Gahagan, 2003). Interestingly, a number geophysicists who
have recently used various techniques to image the deep Earth
beneath Tibet (e.g., Tilmann and Ni, 2003; Zhou and Murphy,
2005) have presented comparable estimates for the Indian
craton's northern extension.
8. Motion history of India following its break-up with
Madagascar 8590 Ma
As reviewed recently by Aitchison et al. (2007a), the last
decade or so has seen a general consensus regarding India's
motion history after it separated from Madagascar around 85
90 million years ago. Influential models of Besse and Courtillot
(1991, 2002, 2003), Acton (1999) and Schettino and Scotese
(2005) place the centre of the Indian craton 3035S at 80 Ma.
In the reconstructions presented below summarizing India's
152
Fig. 5. Some of the various proposals for India's passage to Asia based on Hedges (2003, Fig. 2). Panel a depicts the biotic ferry model as favoured, for example, by
Hedges et al. (1996), Conti et al. (2002), Biju and Bossuyt (2003). Alternative models, bd, propose much high levels of connectivity for the sub-continent. Panel b has
Africa with an extension out from Somalia (Chatterjee and Scotese, 1999). Panel c, is based on Rage (2003, Fig. 1b) with India placed further north, and with
connections to the south via Madagascar. This proposal is founded around the hypothesis that in Late Cretaceous times Asian animals were accessing Madagascar via
India. Panel d is based on Briggs (1989, 2003) and has India tracking close to Africa, thereby facilitating relative easy faunal exchange.
convergence/collision with Asia two parallel scenarios are

shown (based on Acton, 1999; Schettino and Scotese, 2005),
illustrating their slight differences in the plate tectonic
modelling. These largely reflect two points, the first concerns
the various philosophical approaches underpinning the plate
modelling, the second the inherent uncertainties with the datasets that are used to move crustal blocks back to their positions
on Earth several tens of millions of years ago.
Acton's (1999) India motion path, which we adopted in
Aitchison et al. (2007a), is based on several forms of paleomagnetic data and makes use of the alignment and specific agepoints along both the ReunionDeccan Trap and Ninety East
Ridge hot-spot tracks. His synthesis refines considerably
previous estimates of the craton's motion north towards Asia.
It uses data from the Indian continent and deep marine sequences in the Indian Ocean, as was the case with a number of
earlier studies. In addition, nineteen Late Cretaceous through
Oligocene poles from other continents, rotated into an India
reference frame via an ocean floor spreading history model tied
to a series of fixed/slow-moving hot-spot tracks, were also used
to position the block.
With Acton's model, India's northwards advance was
~ 6.6 cm/yr between 120 and 73 Ma, increasing to ~ 21.1 cm/
yr between 73 and 57 Ma. At about 57 Ma there was an abrupt

and massive deceleration (to 9.5 cm/yr) until 2030 Ma when
there was a further major slowdown. At this juncture, Acton
(1999, p. 163) is quoted directly: Interestingly, India's rate of
northward motion, while being much slower after 57 Ma, was
still quite rapid until about 2030 Ma. Whatever happened at
57 Ma, India's journey northward was far from over. As will be
explained below, we consider the 57 Ma event to mark the
collision of India not with Asia but with a Neotethyan intraoceanic arc, the basic configuration being akin to that in presentday Taiwan where the Luzon arc on the Philippine Sea Plate is
colliding with the passive margin of Eurasia (Huang et al., 2000).
9. Position of Eurasia in the Late Cretaceousearly
Cenozoic
As Eurasia was the final destination for India, it is useful to
know where the backstop block (Fig. 1) was at the time of
their contact. Although Eurasia is one of the largest and slowest
moving plates, the paleomagnetic database for Cretaceous and
Cenozoic rocks from the stable portions of the continent is
surprisingly poor. The compilation of Torsvik et al. (2001)
illustrates the point well aside from the 16 paleomagnetic
153
Fig. 6. Simplified bathymetric map of the present-day western Indian Ocean. Based on the GEBCO (2003) chart, it is plotted using a Miller cylindrical projection.
Ocean floor shading corresponds to bathymetric contours 0, 200, 2000 and 4000 m. Approximate intervals of sea-floor spreading are: within the West Somali Basin
(~ 175 to ~ 116 Ma); within the Mascarene Basin (~ 85 Ma to ~ 68 Ma); along the Carlsberg RidgeCentral Indian Ocean (C.I.O.) Ridge (~ 65 Ma to present).
Noteworthy features include the shallow seabed areas between (i) northern Madagascar and the Seychelles and (ii) the Seychelles and the Mascarene Plateau and
(iii) the ChagosLaccadive volcanic trail (C.-L.R, SSW of India) north of ~5N (see Section 5).
poles for the interval 62.049.5 Ma, there are just six other data
entries for the rest of the Cretaceous and Cenozoic. To compound the lack-of-data issue, Riisager et al. (2002) has
suggested that the apparently good lower Paleogene rock
results are problematic on two counts. First, the poles are conspicuously scattered (Riisager et al., 2002, Fig. 7), which may
have resulted from the studies (the vast majority of which were
carried out in the 1960s and 1970s) using outdated laboratory
procedures and methods for calculating characteristic magnetization directions. Second, almost all are from a geographically
miniscule area (NW Britain and the Faroe islands) at the
western extremity of the plate.
To circumvent the problem, as part of efforts to model the
position of the backstop plate in the IndiaAsia collision, we
derived and tested a hybrid 55 Ma stable Eurasia pole (Ali and
Aitchison, 2004, 2006) using recently published high-quality
paleomagnetic data from rocks in the Faroe islands (Riisager
et al., 2002), the Tien Shan range in Kyrgyzstan (Bazhenov and
Mikolaichuk, 2002), SE England (Ali et al., 2003), and the Tien
Shan range in China (Huang et al., 2005). A key feature of the
new pole is that it sits 59 further from the present-day North
Pole than the averaged poles calculated from the old data-set
(Besse and Courtillot, 1991, 2002/3; Torsvik et al., 2001; Schettino
and Scotese, 2005), see Aitchison et al. (2007a, Fig. 2). The new
pole places the southern Lhasa block ~28N at 55 Ma, and that
since this time this part of Eurasia has rotated ~21 clockwise
relative to the spin axis and migrated 1100 km east. As will be seen
below, this new information is critical to understanding plate
tectonic models indicating that collision between India and
southern Tibet took place in the latest Eocene, ~35 Ma, but that
biological exchange between the sub-continent and Asia began 20

25 million years earlier in the late Paleoceneearly Eocene.
A final consideration is the nature of Eurasia's southern
boundary (TibetBurmaNW Indochina) in the Late Cretaceous
and early Paleogene. In this case two aspects need to be explored.
The first concerns how the blocks which formed the southern
margin of Eurasia (Lhasa, Qiangtang, West Burma, Sibumasu,
Indochina etc) were positioned prior to India's collision. Some
workers, for instance, Replumaz and Tapponnier, (2003, Fig. 8)
and Schettino and Scotese (2005, Figs. 33, and 34), portray the
region as a loosely assembled collage of fragments, but there is
little evidence to support this view. Studies of the blocks and their
bounding sutures indicate that the various terranes were
essentially tightly welded to one another and Asia by mid-Early
Cretaceous times (e.g., Smith et al., 1994; Metcalfe, 1996; Yin
and Harrison, 2000; Hall, 2002; Hall et al., in press; our
observations). The second point, concerns the amount of
compression Asia experienced following India's collision. From
our extensive field observations in Tibet we note that the
Linzizong volcanic sequence, which was erupted onto the
southern and central belts of the Lhasa terrane (effectively
Eurasia's front bumper) immediately prior (65 to 4037 Ma) to
the IndiaAsia collision, is ostensibly undeformed. Apart from it
being shortened on a few small-scale south-directed thrusts, the
only other deformation has involved simple SN tilting, typically
2530, which equates to ~12% shortening across a relatively
small part of the Tibetan Plateau. Between the stable core of
Eurasia and the central southern Lhasa block we somewhat
roughly estimate the contraction to be b 20% see the confusing
body of literature in the review of Johnson (2002). This includes
154
deformation within Tibet and the Tien Shan range (north of the
Tarim Basin), with a small amount also being accommodated by
extrusion, principally along the ENEWSW trending Altyn
Tagh Fault, which marks the Tibetan Plateau's northern edge.
10. Timing of collision between India and the Tibet part
of Asia
Practically every scientific paper today discussing the India
Asia (Tibet part) collision informs the reader that this event
started 5055 million years ago (e.g., Lee and Lawver, 1995;
Rowley, 1996; Hodges, 2000; DeCelles et al., 2002; Leech
et al., 2005; Najman, 2006; Zhu et al., 2004). Indeed some
workers have even proposed that the initial contact dates from
65 to 70 Ma (Klootwijk et al., 1992; Rage et al., 1995; Yin and
Harrison, 2000). Following a decade of research in Tibet,
working principally on rocks in the IndiaAsia suture zone (e.g.
Aitchison et al., 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007b; Aitchison and Davis,
2004; Davis et al., 2002; Ziabrev et al., 2003, 2004), as well as
generating related paleomagnetic data from the region and
elsewhere (e.g., Ali et al., 2003; Ali and Aitchison, 2004, 2006;
Abrajevitch et al., 2005), we consider the standard IndiaAsia
collision model to be incorrect. The recent publication by
Aitchison et al. (2007a) explains the case in detail, but the
scenario we consider best explains all of the available data
involves India colliding into a sub-equatorially located intraoceanic arc ~ 55 Ma, with a later impact with the Tibet part of
Asia starting around 35 Ma (Fig. 7).
Sedimentary formations in the suture zone in southern Tibet
record the first collision, that is, the obduction of the arc/suprasubduction zone basin onto the sub-continent. Near the
settlement of Sangdanlin (specifically exposures at 29.25N,

85.25E), the Indian passive margin sequences exhibit a major
change in depositional conditions marked by an abrupt influx of
coarse-grained ophiolitic detritus (principally serpentinite
clasts) (Ding et al., 2005; Chan, 2006; Aitchison et al.,
2007a). Radiolarian fossils date this event to ~ 57 Ma (biozone
RP6; Ding et al., 2005; Chan, 2006). In addition, exposed along
almost the entire length of the suture is a distinctive conglomerate facies, which in Tibet is referred to as the Liuqu
Formation (Davis et al., 2002) and in northern India the Chogdo
Formation (Clift et al., 2002). The LiuquChogdo molasse
package has a distinctive clast assemblage comprising oceanic
terrane material (serpentinites, cherts, volcaniclastic sandstones,
basalts etc) and Indian passive margin rocks (limestones,
quartz-rich sediments, phyllites etc), which were deposited in a
very proximal setting. Critically, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that rocks from Tibet (arc volcanics, granites)
were worked into the deposit, indicating that the Asian margin
was not involved in this particular collision.
Regarding the younger IndiaAsia impact, within the suture
zone there are other rocks which provide key age controls on the
event. The work of Chung et al. (2005) indicates that arc-related
volcanism on the Lhasa block continued largely unabated
through the Paleocene and Eocene, to at least 40 Ma; the
radiometric ages published by Miller et al. (2000) pushed the
younger end of igneous activity to ~ 37 Ma. In the context of the
petrogenetic models developed by, for example, Menzies
(1990), Tatsumi and Eggins (1995) and Ernst (1999), the
youngest volcanic rocks should approximate the time when
Indian continental lithosphere entered the trench immediately
south of the Lhasa Block, i.e., the start of collision (volcanism
Fig. 7. Break-up and dispersal of Gondwana at 166.0 (a) and 120.4 Ma (b). The modelling was carried out using the GMAP software (Torsvik and Smethurst, 1999). Positioning
of the major blocks is based on the Central Africa apparent pole path and the crustal block finite rotation model of Schettino and Scotese (2005). The stencil for Greater India
follows Ali and Aitchison (2005, 2007). The position of the Neotethyan arc is inferred from Van der Voo et al. (1999), Aitchison et al. (2000, 2007b) and Abrajevitch et al.
(2005). The paleo-shorelines are based on Smith et al. (1994), the respective images from which these are based are shown in the top left-hand corner of each figure (N.B., to
avoid compounding errors in the positioning of these paleo-physiographic features, it is strongly recommended that any subsequent studies refer directly to the original work).
should stop when the final section of oceanic lithosphere

adjacent to the northern edge of India had subducted to
~ 100 km depth). A second timing constraint is provided by the
youngest marine sediments (e.g., Searle et al., 1988, 2007;
Rowley, 1996). For many years available data indicated that
marine conditions existed in the suture zone area until the late
Ypresian/early Lutetian (Gradstein et al., 2005, set the boundary
between these two stages at 48.6 Ma). However, both
planktonic foraminifera and calcareous nannoplankton fossils
obtained by Wang et al. (2002) (and reaffirmed by our own
work (Aitchison et al., 2007a) and that of H. Willems (pers.
comm., 2007) from an Indian passive margin section north of
Old Tingri, near to Mount Everest, are respectively assigned to
the P16 and NP20 biozones, indicating a Late Priabonian age
(~ 35 Ma).
Thus, the two completely independent dating techniques
applied to suture zone rocks, one isotopic studies of igneous
rocks, the other biostratigraphic investigations of a sedimentary
unit, led us to conclude that the collision between India and Asia
happened in the last one or two million years of the Eocene.
Interestingly, some of the earliest workers who applied plate
tectonic theory to the HimalayaTibet orogen (e.g., Veevers et al.,
1971, p. 385; Molnar and Tapponnier, 1975, p. 419) also plumbed
for a latest Eocene/Eo-Oligocene boundary age for the event.
Aside from reconciling the plate tectonic and geological data, an
obvious advantage with a 35 Ma impact is the dramatically
reduced time lag between the contact of the two continents and the
orogenic response. Thus tectonic and related secondary episodes
that have taken place over the last 30-odd million years in South,
SE and East Asia (e.g., Indochina extrusion, uplift-mountain
building and concomitant response reflected in erosion-sedimentation in the adjacent marine basins and epicontinental seas) and
have as their ultimate causal mechanism the India collisionindentation now appear to make more sense.
With regards to the paleobiogeography issue, the computer
animation provided by Aitchison et al. (2007a) is telling, indicating
that northeastern corner of Greater India came in to contact with
western Indonesia in the Late Paleocene (see the 57.5 Ma panel
and Section 13.2 below). Subsequently, India tracked along
western SE Asia (first Sumatra, then Burma) until it made a hard
impact with the Lhasa block 2223 million years later.
11. Possibility of continental slivers east of India, north of
Australia in the Cretaceous
Studies of the marine magnetic anomalies in the oceanic
basins north of West Australia (Fullerton et al., 1989; Sgoufin
et al., 2004; Heine et al., 2004; Robb et al., 2005) indicate that a
rifting event took place along a significant length of this
continental margin ~ 132 Ma (which is similar to the timing of
separation between India and western Australia). Based on the
alignment of both the anomalies and transform faults on the
ocean floor off NW Australia, it is reasonable to suggest that the
continental blocks would probably have eventually accreted to
western and central SE Asia sometime later, most likely in the
mid to Late Cretaceous. If the crustal pieces were substantial,
their presence in the region today should be very obvious, that
155
is, there should be one or more suture zones outboard of which

would be an exotic terrane(s). However, only recently has any
evidence been found (which is somewhat indirect) to support
such an idea. Smyth et al. (in press, 2007b) identified geologically ancient (Archaean and Proterozoic) zircon crystals
entrained in Eocene and younger volcanic rocks which blanket
large areas of eastern Java, central south Indonesia. The relict
mineral grains have yielded distinctive age-profiles which can
best be explained if a raft of western Australia-derived continental crust forms the basement to this part of Indonesia. The
work of Smyth and colleagues also indicates that comparable
material underlying west Java can be excluded. However, it is
possible that similar material is present beneath Sumatra the
east Java terrane is not extensive enough to account for all the
crust that separated from NW Australia in the Early Cretaceous.
Unfortunately, no zircon age-fingerprinting data exist for the
Cenozoic volcanic formations in Sumatra, so we do not know if
the rifted Australia fragments later amalgamated with this part
of Asia.
With regards to biogeographic modelling, we can assert with
a reasonable degree of confidence that previously unaccounted
for continental blocks occupied eastern Neotethys in the early
and middle Cretaceous. Whether such terranes were sub-aerially
exposed and thus could have acted as rafts and/or stepping
stones for terrestrial animals and plants is, however, uncertain.
Comparison with the most likely analogues for the NWAustralia
blocks, the Lord Howe Rise and Norfolk Ridge, east of Australia
(GEBCO, 2003), is informative. Aside from the large islands of
New Zealand and New Caledonia, both of which sit above sea
level because they were involved in Cenozoic tectonic collisions
(Trewick et al., 2007, and references therein), only minute
portions of these ridges form dry land. As explained by Trewick
et al. (2007), such ribbon-like continental slivers are commonly
thinned during the rifting process and, as such, typically sit well
below (~ 2 km or more) the sea. It is thus unlikely that any of the
NW Australia-derived blocks facilitated the migration of land
animals and flora to cross between India and Asia during parts of
the Cretaceous and possibly the early Cenozoic.
12. Global and sub-regional sea level considerations
It is critical for terrestrial organisms that their habitat remains
above sea level. From a geological perspective, however, we live
in a rather unusual world; present-day global sea level is relatively low largely because a substantial volume of the planet's
water (N 32 106 km3) is locked-up in ice-sheets, principally in
Antarctica and to a lesser extent Greenland. Returning all of the
trapped water to the global ocean should, theoretically, induce an
80-m sea level rise (www.USGS FS 002-00 Sea Level and
Climate.htm), but isostatic readjustments would reduce this to
around + 54 m (Miller et al., 2005, p. 1298). Whilst a fifty-plus
metre sea level increase might not seem significant, the equivalent shift on present-day Earth would, for example, inundate
considerable portions of North America, South America and
Eurasia. Prior to the formation of the Antarctic ice-sheet, which
is thought to have occurred in the Oligocene (triggered by the
opening of the Drake Passage and the development of the
156
Antarctic circum-polar current, e.g., Zachos et al., 2001), Earth

was ostensibly ice-free and sea levels were consequently higher
during the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic. The other major
control affecting sea level is the volume of the global mid-ocean
ridge system, a variable bathymetric-high controlled by plate
tectonic activity which changes much more slowly over periods
spanning a few tens of millions of years.
Estimates of absolute sea level heights in the Mesozoic and
Cenozoic are currently the matter of some debate. For instance,
Hallam (1984), Haq et al. (1987) and Gradstein et al. (2005)
placed it at between +210 and +370 m in the Late Cretaceous
(Fig. 2). In contrast, Miller et al. (2005), whose calculations use a
backstripping technique which aims to correct for sediment
compaction, sediment loading, and the downwarping effect of the
water column above the seabed at a particular instant in the
geological past, suggest that heights were appreciably less then
at +100 50 m. Superimposed on the general sea level trend are
shorter period fluctuations (every 12 million years) which over
104106 years may have shifted levels downwards by a few to
several tens of metres (Haq et al., 1987; Rhodes et al., 1999). The
mechanism for these geologically rapid changes is thought to be
sub-regional ice-sheet growth/retreat. From a paleogeographic
perspective they could have been very important allowing
terrestrial animals to move more easily between landmasses
which otherwise might have been separated by substantial tracts
of water.
Regarding India's biological connectivity, three issues should
be noted. First, higher sea levels in the Cretaceous through midCenozoic would have both reduced the habitable area of the
Indian Ocean basin rimming continents, and thereby widened
the gaps between exposed land surfaces. Second, the geological
record and present-day topography of the sub-continent indicate
that large areas of the craton were sub-aerial, particularly after
the eruption of the Deccan Traps at the end of the Cretaceous,
~ 65.5 Ma, thus it could have provided a refuge for terrestrial
organisms. Third, the Cretaceous and Paleogene Indian plate
rocks now incorporated into the Himalayan chain are largely
shallow marine sedimentary formations (Liu, 1992; Liu and
Einsele, 1996). Thus for most of its journey towards Asia, the
northern part of the sub-continent (very approximately the area
defined as the Indian craton's pre-collision extension see
above), would have been submerged, although areas locally
could have been sub-aerially exposed if they had been involved
in crustal block collisions (as is the case with New Zealand and
New Caledonia).
13. Revised paleogeographic model
Before presenting a series of paleogeographic reconstructions
for the Indian Ocean basin rimming continents at key times from
the break-up of Gondwana through to the India's collision with
Asia (16635 Ma), attention is drawn to some of the more
rigorously defined plate tectonic models for the Eastern Hemisphere published since 2000. The paper by Schettino and
Scotese (2001) announced their interactive online plate modelling software (www.itis-molinari.mi.it/intro-reconstr.html).
Stampfli and Borel (2003) provided insights into the evolution
of the western and central Tethys from the Ordovician through

Cretaceous. More directly relevant to this study is the work by
Reeves and de Wit (2000), which presents a 2000 Ma plate
tectonic model for Neotethys and the Indian Ocean. A downloadable animation (at 1 m.y. intervals), is also available
(Kartoweb.itc.nl/gondwana/index.asp). Further east, Hall's
(2002) SE Asia and W/SW Pacific computer program, also
with 1 m.y. snapshots, provides detailed information on one of
the most tectonically complex regions on Earth, although with
the oldest reconstruction going back only to 55 Ma (early
Eocene), its value to this study is limited.
The paleogeographic reconstructions address two phases, (1)
the Middle Jurassic through end-Paleocene, which covers the
break-up and dispersal of Gondwana, and (2) India's convergence followed by collision with Asia in the Eocene. In the
former, we use the plate motion parameters of Schettino and
Scotese (2005), which are tied to the Gradstein et al. (2005)
geological time-scale. Very slight rotations between their
Central Africa reference fragment and the northern Africa
blocks (Somalia, NE Africa, NW Africa), principally for the
Jurassic and Cretaceous are ignored, as are relative movements
between the Brazil Craton and the smaller blocks of southern
South America (see also Eagles, 2007). The stencil for Greater
India is from Ali and Aitchison (2005, 2007). To aid with
comparisons, all projections are centred on 50E, 30S. The
modeled time-windows of 166.0, 120.4, 99.6, 83.5, 67.7 and
55.9 Ma are the instants for which Schettino and Scotese (2005)
provide finite rotation poles to move all of the Gondwana
blocks back to the Central Africa reference fragment, which in
turn is positioned on the globe using a synthetic polar wander
path based on a suite of global data.
As mentioned above, two parallel models are presented for the
Eocene showing India's paleoposition as deduced by Acton
(1999) and Schettino and Scotese (2005). The two motion paths
reflect differences in the way the models have been constructed
including the selection of input data, finite rotation poles, choice
of the base-level reference frame etc. Another issue, although
relatively minor, concerns the time-scale used in the modeling:
Schettino and Scotese (2005) employed Gradstein et al. (2005)
whereas Acton (1999) rooted his work on the geomagnetic
polarity time-scale of Cande and Kent (1995). Whilst for the early
Cenozoic the divergence may appear negligible, for instance the
numerical age for the Paleocene/Eocene boundary in the two
scales is set respectively at 55.8 and 55.0 Ma, a crustal block
travelling at 10 cm/year north at this time would plot at noticeably
different positions on a globe, the latitudinal offset being 80 km.
For the Eocene, the paleogeographic maps switch to a
viewing point above 70E, 20N. The poles used to fix Eurasia
are based on Ali and Aitchison (2004, 2006) thereby avoiding
the problematic stable Eurasia Paleogene pole issue outlined
above. This also overcomes the error uncertainties associated
with transferring poles from other continents to Eurasia which,
for example, involves three plate-boundary crossings simply to
get from Schettino and Scotese's (2005, Fig. 2) Central Africa
reference block (i.e., EurasiaNorth AmericaNW Africa
Central Africa). A critical aspect of the modelling concerns the
locations of Indochina and western SE Asia relative to the South
157
Fig. 8. Break-up and dispersal of Gondwana at 99.6 (a) and 83.5 Ma (b) see Fig. 7 caption. In these two reconstructions, the approximate outline of the upper
portions of the Kerguelen Plateau, parts of which may have been sub-aerially exposed at these times, is shown. Note comments in Fig. 7 regarding paleo-shorelines.
China block. For this paper we follow Hall (2002) and move
Indochina (with western SE Asia) ~ 500 km NW back along the
Red River Fault, and then rotate SumatraJava a small amount
clockwise relative to the Malay Peninsula.
In addition to presenting an updated plate tectonic model,
paleo-shorelines have been added based on Smith et al. (1994).
We consider the paleogeographies, rather than the plate tectonic
models (e.g., Reeves and de Wit, 2000; Stampfli and Borel,
2003; Schettino and Scotese, 2005), provide a more realistic way
of evaluating possible terrestrial pathways (and barriers) at
specific times between the Gondwanan continents, and beyond.
Critically, as will be seen below, although some continental
blocks were largely emergent during the Meso- and Cenozoic
(e.g., Australia), northern India, eastern Africa and large swathes
of Arabia were for much of this time submerged beneath shallow
seas. Another noteworthy point relates to the three Eocene
reconstructions, each of which depict the Turgai (or Turgay) Sea
as bisecting Eurasia approximately along the 60E line. It is
likely that at various times in the Eocene this shallow sea
partially retreated, thereby allowing terrestrial faunas to migrate
across the continent, and possibly to the other large landmasses
(e.g., Cox, 1974; Smith et al., 2006).
13.1. Gondwana break-up and dispersal
The first paleogeographic map is for 166 Ma (late Middle
Jurassic), just after East and West Gondwana had begun to
separate with small patches of true oceanic crust then flooring
the Somali and Mozambique basins (Fig. 7a). However, with all
of its constituent blocks still forming a single entity,
connectivity across Gondwana at this time would have been
very high. As East and West Gondwana began to drift apart over
the next 50 million years (until ~ 116 Ma according to Schettino

and Scotese, 2005) Madagascar (together with the rest of East
Gondwana) moved along the Davie Fracture Zone on a track
roughly parallel to the coast of eastern Africa (in present-day
coordinates slightly east of south, ~ 170) (Rabinowitz and
Woods, 2006).
The 120.4 Ma reconstruction (mid-Early Cretaceous;
Fig. 7b) is just before Madagascar stopped migrating relative
to eastern Africa. It is noteworthy that only after this time did
the shortest distance between Madagascar and Africa began to
grow (from around 400 km) to its present-day separation
(~ 430 km) at about 116 Ma. By then, AustraliaAntarctica and
India had been moving away from one another for 1112 m.y.,
with a fan-shaped expanse of ocean floor, which widened to the
east, separating the two elements. The South Atlantic was now
also wedging open; viewed from space it would have looked
like a very long Red Sea.
The 99.6 Ma panel, (Early/Late Cretaceous boundary;
Fig. 8a) is particularly interesting for although a substantial
ocean separated IndiaSeychellesMadagascar from AustraliaAntarctica, large portions of the Kerguelen Plateau were
sub-aerially exposed (Coffin, 1992; Frey et al., 2000; Mohr et
al., 2002). This land surface could therefore have provided
terrestrial floras and faunas with a conduit with which to cross
this barrier. Such a scenario is compatible with Sereno et al.
(2004) who proposed, based on dinosaur fossils, that India and
Madagascar were connected to the other southern continents
until the beginning of the Late Cretaceous. From the
reconstruction (and the one for 83.5 Ma, Fig. 8b), we would
also contend that from this time on it would have been impossible
for the Gunnerus Ridge on Antarctica (around 60S, 25E at
99.6 Ma, 68S, 33E today) to have linked directly with India
158
Madagascar, even if the northern Madagascar Ridge/Plateau

(centred on 48S, 37E at 99.6 Ma, 27S, 45E today) was
exposed (see also Reeves and de Wit, 2000, Fig. 3c, and Marks
and Tikku, 2001, Fig. 3, and compare, for example, with Noonan,
and Chippindale, 2006, Fig. 1; Yoder and Nowak, 2006, Fig. 2).
By 83.5 Ma (Late Cretaceous; Fig. 8b), India was appreciably
more isolated. Pathways to AntarcticaAustralia were then likely
severed as the shortest distance between the two blocks was
N 2000 km. Indirect connections via the exposed portions of the
Kerguelen Plateau can almost certainly be discounted as the
nearest part of the sub-continent to the exposed point on the LIP
(which would have flooded considerably since 99.6 Ma due to
subsidence of the underlying ocean floor) would have been well
over a thousand kilometers (see also Reeves and de Wit, 2000,
Fig. 3b). We therefore propose that the only terrestrial link India
had with the other major continents at this time, and it had to be
markedly discontinuous, was with Africa via the Seychelles
BlockAmirante RidgeProvidence Banknorthern tip of Madagascareast coast of Madagascar (see Plummer, 1995; Plummer
and Belle, 1995, for information on the middle elements).
During the very latest Cretaceous (67.7 Ma; Fig. 10a), India
appears to have reached its maximum level of isolation. The
continent was ringed by a large expanse of ocean. Also, high
global sea levels then meant that most of west, north and east
India, together with substantial portions of Arabia and eastern
and northeastern Africa, were submerged. Such a physiographic
configuration must have reduced the sub-continent's biological
connectivity. It thus appears that any link India had with the
other major continents involved a route to Africa via
MadagascarProvidence BankAmirante RidgeSeychelles
(Fig. 10; Section 5). Proposals for a connection between the
sub-continent and ArabiaAsia by way of the equatoriallylocated island arc the sub-continent was to collide with in the
latest Paleocene seem unlikely. Northern India was submerged
and the gap between emergent India and any volcanic islands
on the arc would have been at least 1500 km (three-and-a-half
times the width of the present-day Mozambique Channel).
The terminal Paleocene reconstruction (55.9 Ma; Fig. 9b)
shows northern India at low northerly latitudes, with the
jettisoned Seychelles block (break-up of the two commenced at
around the CretaceousPaleogene boundary and coincided with
the main Deccan Trap eruptions) then sitting midway between
the sub-continent and Madagascar (e.g., Todal and Edholm,
1998). It is possible that India then had both southerly and
northerly connections with the other continents. The Chagos
Laccadive volcanic hot-spot ridge (Fig. 6) could have linked the
block with the Mascarene PlateauSeychelles and beyond
(Section 5); at the same time northern Greater India was colliding with the Dazhuqu arc and its along-strike equivalents
(Aitchison et al., 2004, 2007a and references therein), whilst the
northeast corner of the sub-continent lay adjacent/close to
SumatraBurma. As the Eocene reconstructions presented
below demonstrate, the potential for biotic exchange between
India and Asia after this moment, and perhaps just before, must
have been considerable, as northern Greater India advanced
towards its final docking site in southern Tibet.
13.2. Arrival of India at Asia
In the two 55 Ma (earliest Eocene) reconstructions (Fig. 11),
India is shown as having just collided with the Dazhuqu arc.
Timing of this event is based on stratigraphic data from various
Fig. 9. Break-up and dispersal of Gondwana at 67.7 (a) and 55.9 Ma (b) see Fig. 7 caption. On the 55.9 Ma reconstruction two coastlines are shown for India, for
60 Ma (red dash line) and 53 Ma in Smith et al. (1994), because this is a key time when the sub-continent collided with the Dazhuqu arc and its along-strike equivalents
and the northeast corner Greater India lay very close to western SE Asia. Note comments in Fig. 7 regarding paleo-shorelines.
parts of the 2500-km-long IndusYarlung Tsangpo suture zone

(Aitchison et al., 2007a and references therein). Using the coeval
sedimentary formations now in the Himalayas as a guide (Liu,
1992; Liu and Einsele, 1996), together with present-day Taiwan
as an arccontinent collision analogue (where the Luzon arc is
overriding the east Eurasia margin offshore of mainland China),
the leading edge of Greater India is depicted as being subaerially exposed, with a shallow marine basin to the south
(broadly equivalent to the Taiwan Straits). Acton's motion path
brings India very close to Sumatra; the Schettino and Scotese
track places the sub-continent ~ 1000 km further to the west.
At 45 Ma (middle Eocene; Fig. 12) the northern edge of
India was still some distance south of the Lhasa block. A
number of island arc fragments that had obducted onto India
after it collided with the Dazhuqu arc ~ 55 Ma and which are
schematically depicted in the Fig. 12 could have formed islands.
We note that tracts of northern India (Himalaya and the cratonic
parts) remained submerged (Liu, 1992; Wang et al., 2002;
Gingerich, 2003). With the Acton (1999) motion path, we also
contend that northeastern India, with it being in contact with
western SE Asia, might have been sub-aerially exposed; with
the Schettino and Scotese motion parameters, it is more appropriate to model this region as submerged.
The 35 Ma reconstruction (the Eo/Oligocene boundary is at
33.9 Ma in the Gradstein et al. time-scale), shows the approximate time when northern India entered the north-dipping
subduction zone beneath southern Tibet, thus marking the
initiation of continentcontinent collision (Fig. 13). In support
of this proposal, we note that the youngest marine fossils from
sediments which accumulated on the southern margin of
Eurasia date from the middle Eocene (Liu et al., 1988; Wang
et al., 1999). Directly south of the suture, the youngest marine
formations are assigned to the latest Eocene (Wang et al., 2002;
Aitchison et al., 2007a), whilst in NE Pakistan marine conditions existed until the end Eocene (Gingerich, 2003).
14. Discussion
From a plate tectonic/paleogeographic perspective, we advocate that India was reasonably well connected to one or more of
the other Gondwanan landmasses until around 85 Ma (Figs. 8a, b
and 9a) after which it migrated rapidly away from Madagascar (see
also Sereno et al., 2004). However, we question the notion that
after this moment the sub-continent spent the next 30 million years
in total isolation before its northeast corner impinged upon Asia
~57 Ma. The modelling carried out for this study (Figs. 8b, 9a)
suggests that prolonged biological contact with other continents
(via Africa) during the last 15 million years of the Cretaceous could
have involved a pathway along a string of physiographic highs
linking the Mascarene PlateauSeychelles Bank and northern
Madagascar (Fig. 10). In the Paleocene (Fig. 9b), an extension to
this track could have developed as a result of the Reunion hot-spot
volcanism forming a train of islands on the ocean floor west/
southwest southern India (Fig. 6). The route though must have
included a number of substantial marine barriers, for instance
~400 km for MadagascarAfrica; possibly one or more broadly
similar gaps between northern Madagascar and west-SW India.
159
Fig. 10. Simplified paleogeographic map (Miller cylindrical projection) of the

western Indian Ocean in the Maastrichtian (67.7 Ma). The paleo-shorelines
depicted in Fig. 9a are shown. Present-day bathymetric charts and geological
information suggest that the islands and shallow ground on the Providence Bank
and Amirante Ridge may in the Late Cretaceous have provided a terrestrial
conduit between northern MadagascarSeychelleswestern India (see Sections
5 and 13.1). However, it is reiterated that such a passage almost certainly
included a number of marine barriers in the form of shallow seas and deep
oceans. Incidentally, the direct route between Madagascar and India would have
involved a sea crossing of 800900 km.
These inferences are in keeping with, for example, the conclusions

of Briggs (1989, 2003) and Chatterjee and Scotese (1999) who
have drawn attention to the high biological connectivity India had
with other Gondwana continents in the second half of the Late
Cretaceous. Critically though, unlike those works the new
paleogeographic framework avoids having to make dramatic
modifications to the plate tectonic model in order to explain the
biological record (an Africa-hugging India motion path in the case
of the former, a large Greater Somalia continental block protruding
out into the Indian Ocean for the latter).
The modelling is, however, in conflict with a number of other
biologically-based proposals for causeways linking the Gondwanan continents in the later parts of the Cretaceous. For example, it has been hypothesized, following studies of mammal
fossils (Krause et al., 1997; Krause, 2001) and dinosaur
remains (Sampson et al., 1998) in the Mahajanga Basin of NW
Madgascar, that South America and the mini-continent were
linked via AntarcticaKergeulen PlateauIndiaSeychelles for
the last 15 m.y. of the Cretaceous. Whilst this connection may
have existed for the period 11595 Ma, two factors suggest that
such a conduit would have been severed by the early Campanian
(Fig. 8b provides a useful guide). First, the ocean crust the
Kerguelen Plateau formed upon would by this time have subsided
considerably, drowning much of the once exposed land surface.
Second, the distance between any remaining islands on the edifice
and India would have then been well over one thousand
kilometers (a similar point was also aired by Masters et al.,
2006, p. 413). In their Madagascar focused work, Masters et al.
(2006, p. 403404) intimated that the surmised Maastrichtian age
of the Mahajanga Basin fossil assemblage (e.g., Rogers et al.,
2000) could be in fact wrong, and suggested it might be as old as
88 Ma. This would certainly be more amenable with the
paleogeographic model. Incidentally, we note that in the latest
160
Fig. 11. Arrival of India at Asia 55 Ma. The paleopositions of Eurasia are based on Ali and Aitchison (2004, 2006). For India, two scenarios are shown, the first uses the
apparent pole path of Acton (1999), the second uses poles calculated from Schettino and Scotese (2005). In the latter, the finite rotation poles for moving India relative
to the Central Africa reference block are listed at 55.9 and 47.9. In this work, we simply interpolate the euler pole location and rotation angle. Note comments in Fig. 7
regarding paleo-shorelines.
Cretaceous a slightly narrower barrier (~800 km) separated West

Africa and northeast South America (Fig. 8a), although the
conclusions of Gheerbrant and Rage (2006) could be used to
argue against a connection between these blocks at this time.
We also find it very difficult to support the hypothesis which
argues for northern India being directly connected to Asia in the
Maastrichtian (Jaeger et al., 1989; Prasad and Rage, 1991; Rage

et al., 1995; Rage, 2003; Van Bocxlaer et al., 2006). The
principal concern is that the marine gap separating the exposed
land on the two continents (Fig. 9a) would have been too wide
for terrestrial vertebrates to have crossed, particularly salt-water
intolerant species. Assuming interpretations of the fossil record
Fig. 12. Arrival of India at Asia 45 Ma see Fig. 11 caption. The paleopositions of Eurasia are based on Ali and Aitchison (2004, 2006phy.>). In the Schettino and
Scotese (2005) paper, the finite rotation poles for moving India relative to the Central Africa reference block are listed at 47.9 and 40.1 Ma. In this work, we simply
interpolate the euler pole location and rotation angle. Note comments in Fig. 7 regarding paleo-shorelines.
161
Fig. 13. Arrival of India at Asia 35 Ma see Fig. 11 caption. The paleopositions of Eurasia are based on Ali and Aitchison (2004, 2006). In the Schettino and Scotese
(2005) paper, the finite rotation poles for moving India relative to the Central Africa reference block are listed at 40.1 and 33.1 Ma. In this work, we simply interpolate
the euler pole location and rotation angle. Note comments in Fig. 7 regarding paleo-shorelines.
are correct, then any AsiaIndia migrations almost certainly

involved terrestrial animals transferring using Simpson's (1940)
sweepstake process. Additionally, the intra-Tethyan island arc
(see Section 6) may have provided stepping stones with which
to break the journey. Two problems remain though. First, as
Masters et al. (2006, p. 400) pointedly explained when mulling
over the notion of dinosaurs rafting to Madagascar on vegetation mats, the sweepstake mechanism is really only feasible
for small animals. Second, the prevailing winds and surfaceocean currents combined with the paleogeographic configuration may not have been particularly favourable. Whilst the
northeasterly trades, which characterize the tropicalsubtropical
latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, could have propelled rafts
from Asia towards the equator, with India being some distance
south of this line, any vessels would have likely become becalmed in the Doldrums before being blown away from the subcontinent by the southeasterly trades of the tropicalsubtropical
Southern Hemisphere regions. The passage to India would thus
have been rather difficult and any successful migrants would
have been very lucky indeed. Incidentally, the paleogeographic
scenario for this time is compatible with the record of similar
shallow-marine environment inhabiting sharks and rays which
have been identified in India, Niger and the Spanish Pyrenees
(Soler-Gijon and Lopez-Martinez, 1998).
Regarding the IndiaAsia collision (in Tibet), we note that
although we have recently presented the case for the event dating
from ~35 Ma (Aitchison et al., 2007a), which makes it some twenty
million years younger than many consider, our tectonic scenario
(Figs. 1113) is compatible with the biological record indicating
that Asian mammals were present on the sub-continent (in western
Pakistan) in the Early Eocene (e.g., Clyde et al., 2003; Rose et al.,
2006; Sahni, 2006), as were certain freshwater gastropods (Khler
and Glaubrecht, 2007). With regards to the out-of-India dispersal

hypothesis (e.g., Bossuyt and Milinkovitch, 2001; Conti et al.,
2002; Wilkinson et al., 2002; Karanth, 2006), we suggest that
~57 Ma was the earliest time such migrations would have been
possible, certainly for non-volant faunas.
15. Conclusions
A new, or at least substantially updated, paleogeographic
model has been presented for the Middle Jurassic through Late
Eocene (16635 Ma) break-up of Gondwana and the dispersal of
its constituent continents. The focus of the work has been to
assess how the tectonic and paleogeographic evolution affected
the biological connectivity of the Indian block. The model
differs from similar efforts in one or more of the following ways:
1. The reconstructions are accurately drawn (using the GMAP
software of Torsvik and Smethurst, 1999).
2. The shape and size of the India block are robustly based (see
Ali and Aitchison, 2005, 2007).
3. Potential influences of rifted continental blocks/slivers
which peeled off NW Australia in the Early Cretaceous
and a Neotethyan island arc system are considered.
4. The refined plate motion model of Schettino and Scotese
(2005) is used to plot Gondwana's break-up and dispersal.
5. A revised IndiaAsia convergencecollision model is used
based largely on Aitchison et al. (2007a).
6. Paleo-shorelines, not continental block edges, are used to
evaluate the width of the marine barriers separating exposed
land surfaces.
7. Ocean islands, in particular those associated with the
Kerguelen Plateau and Deccan TrapReunion hot-spot trail,
162
acting as land bridges/stepping stones are considered in some

detail.
Although it is widely perceived that India became progressively isolated from its old Gondwana neighbours during the
Cretaceous Period (145.565.5 Ma), a case can be made for the
sub-continent maintaining various physical connections with the
other landmasses throughout much of this time interval, and
indeed beyond until its northeast corner eventually impinged on
western SE Asia at around the Paleocene/Eocene boundary. The
model thus appears compatible with India having various forms of
biological linkages with the other southern landmasses in the Late
Cretaceous, although the passageways were not totally open,
ostensibly because of their narrow width and discontinuous
nature. Hence the fossil record (e.g., Thewissen et al., 2001;
Karanth, 2006) and present-day amphibian catalogue (e.g.,
Daniels, 1992; Bossuyt and Milinkovitch, 2001; Biju and
Bossuyt, 2003) which inform us that India had also developed
endemic forms prior to its glancing contact (~57 Ma) followed by
hard collision (~ 35 Ma) with Asia. The paleogeographic
modelling, however, does not support all biologically-based
proposals, for instance, the idea that Madagascar was linked to
South America via a Kerguelen Plateau route between 80 and
65 Ma, or that northern India was directly connected with Asia in
the Maastrichtian.
Rana and Wilson (2003) recently suggested that the some of
the apparent conflicts with the biological patterns and plate
tectonic models were possibly due to inadequate databases with
the former (see also Forster, 1999, p. 179; O'Connor et al., 2006
p. 285). Hopefully, future paleontological studies will help
rectify this issue. Also, for some of the problematic biological data the now rehabilitated oceanic dispersal process
(e.g., Vences et al., 2003; de Queiroz, 2005) might provide a
better explanation.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for advice from Gary Acton, Antonio
Schettino and Chris Scotese regarding plate modelling. Tony
Barber, Robert Hall and John Milsom are thanked for sharing
information on the geology and tectonic evolution of SE Asia
and NW Australia. Christopher Matchette-Downes provided
critical insights into the Late Cretaceous and Paleocene development of the MadagascarSeychellesMascarene Plateau
region. John Briggs, Will Clyde, Elena Conti, Sankar
Chatterjee, Wilfried Jokat, Ellen Miller, Robert Moyle, Frank
Rutschmann, Ashok Sahni, Michael Novak, and Anne Yoder
very kindly forwarded copies of their biogeographic papers.
The comments by Aland Baxter and David Wilmshurst on latestage drafts of the manuscript were much appreciated.
Constructive critiques by Jean-Claude Rage, an anonymous
reviewer and journal editor Tony Hallam proved very helpful.
Work on the Asia backstop positioning issue was in part funded
by CERG grants HKU700205 and HKU 700104. The figures
used in this manuscript are available from JRA in various
formats, as is the computer animation associated with the
Aitchison et al. (2007a) paper.
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Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145 166

Gondwana to Asia: Plate tectonics, paleogeography and the biological

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

55 Ma (e.g., Lee and Lawver, 1995; Rowley, 1996; Hodges, 2000;

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

Bocxlaer et al., 2006, p. 4). Others have gone as far as presenting

(Sgoufin et al., 2004). We thus consider the strongly

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

only ~430 km apart (Fig. 1; GEBCO, 2003). Although such a

Fig. 2. Simplified JurassicCretaceousCenozoic (2000 Ma) time-scale based

Possible role of ocean volcano chains and plateaus.

4. 13285 Ma position of IndiaMadagascarSeychelles

A fundamental tenet of plate tectonic theory is that oceanic

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

Bossuyt and Milinkovitch (2001)

Clyde et al. (2003)

Dinosaurs and mammals, western India

Jaeger et al. (1989)

Sampson et al. (1998)

Cichlid fishes (freshwater)

Vences et al. (2001)

Poux et al. (2005); Yoder and Nowak (2006) review

Various tetrapod families

Chatterjee and Scotese (1999); Briggs (2003) review

India as a biotic ferry (present-day

IndiaAsia connection from ~55 Ma

Late Cretaceous (6570 Ma) Asian

Late Cretaceous (80 Ma) Southern route

Late Cretaceous/Cenozoic Africa

Late Cretaceous/Cenozoic Africa to

India close to Africa during

could have provided a stepping-stone for migrations between

(Reith Bank, Owen Bank, Seagull Shoals) indicate that

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

have subducted into the mantle; certain low-velocity zone forms

part of the continent. Even before the emergence of plate

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

paleomagnetically based fill-the-gap proposals (e.g., Besse

extended ~ 950 km north of the current north-central part of the

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

convergence/collision with Asia two parallel scenarios are

yr between 73 and 57 Ma. At about 57 Ma there was an abrupt

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

biological exchange between the sub-continent and Asia began 20

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

settlement of Sangdanlin (specifically exposures at 29.25N,

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

should stop when the final section of oceanic lithosphere

is, there should be one or more suture zones outboard of which

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

Antarctic circum-polar current, e.g., Zachos et al., 2001), Earth

of the western and central Tethys from the Ordovician through

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

the next 50 million years (until ~ 116 Ma according to Schettino

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

Madagascar, even if the northern Madagascar Ridge/Plateau

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

parts of the 2500-km-long IndusYarlung Tsangpo suture zone

Fig. 10. Simplified paleogeographic map (Miller cylindrical projection) of the

These inferences are in keeping with, for example, the conclusions

J.R. Ali, J.C. Aitchison / Earth-Science Reviews 88 (2008) 145166

Cretaceous a slightly narrower barrier (~800 km) separated West