Reversal of drainage patterns related to the Late Cretaceous topographic doming: a case study from eastern Gondwana basins of India

Mantle plume upwelling and associated topographic doming may affect sedimentation systems over large areas of the Earth’s crust, including drainage basins. An integrated provenance study, including petrography, palaeocurrent data, heavy mineral chemistry, and detrital monazite dating of the Palaeo-Mesozoic Gondwana sandstones in the Mahanadi Basin in eastern India, tracks sediment sources, reconstructs the palaeogeography of eastern Gondwanaland, and records the effects of doming on drainage pattern. The sandstones are mostly arkosic to quartz arenite, sourced from transitional continental to craton interior regions. Garnet chemistry from Permian sandstones suggests a dominant contribution from source rocks metamorphosed under amphibolite to granulite facies conditions. Tourmaline chemistry of the Late Carboniferous to the Late Triassic sandstones links its source primarily to metapelites and metapsammites rocks, while the same indicates predominant Li-poor granitoid sources for the Early Cretaceous sandstones. The spectrum of monazite detrital ages of the Mahanadi sandstones reveals four major clusters: (1) 2385–2249 Ma, (2) 1627–1547 Ma, (3) 1146–662 Ma, and (4) 571–410 Ma. The integration of heavy mineral chemistry, petrography, monazite geochronology, and palaeocurrent data, from the Permo-Carboniferous to the Late Triassic sandstones, establishes sediment sources within the Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt and the Singhbhum Mobile Belt of India, and East Antarctica. In contrast, the southerly palaeocurrent record of the Early Cretaceous deposit indicates sediment supply from the Rengali province of the Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt (EGMB) and the Chhotanagpur Gneissic Complex. Therefore, Early Cretaceous sandstones attest to a change in source rock, primarily controlled by the south-easterly tilting of the basin, linked to the mantle plume-related domal uplift. This study also highlights that before the breakup of Gondwanaland, East Antarctica and EGMB existed as a single landmass.