Chapter 21 Mineral potential of Proterozoic intracratonic basins in India

Abstract

AbstractThere are three large intracratonic basins (Vindhyan, Cuddapah and Chattisgarh) and several smaller basins (Kaladgi, Bhima, Pakhal, Penganga, Indravati, Khariar, Sabari and Kolhan) covering a large part of peninsular India. They are not known to host any significant metallic resource – except for a substantial uranium resource and Pb–Zn sulphide mineralization in the Cuddapah Basin, uranium in Bhima and Kaladgi basins and manganese in the Penganga sequence – but are nevertheless the repository of vast resources of industrial rocks (limestone, dolomite, phosphorite, aluminous laterite, building materials) and minerals (including pyrite, barite and diamond) in the country. The temporal distribution of these resources indicates a Mesoproterozoic age for all the deposits and occurrences except the uranium deposits in the Vempalle dolostones in the southwestern fringe of the Cuddapah Basin, which are Palaeoproterozoic in age. The Cuddapah Basin is the most intensely mineralized Proterozoic basin, with the Cumbum Formation in the Nallamalai belt hosting stratabound base metals and barite, dated c. 1.6 Ga, all the way from north to south. Potential mineralization, still undiscovered in the basin, is a large SEDEX-type Pb–Zn orebody in the vicinity of the Mangampet barite deposit and unconformity-proximal U deposits in the Kurnool Group, similar to those of the Bhima Basin.