HYDERABAD: An ancient ocean floor hidden beneath Bangladesh has been found by researchers of University of Hyderabad (UoH). Prof KS Krishna, head, Centre for Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science (CEOAS), School of Physics at the UoH along with Dr Mohammed Ismaiel, DST-INSPIRE faculty and researchers from National Institute Oceanography (NIO) have made findings of an ancient ocean floor hidden under Bangladesh. These findings have been published in the latest issue of Current Science.
A release from the varsity said this finding was an outcome of many years of research work carried out at NIO as part of a collaboration with ONGC, Dehradun and Rice University, Houston on understanding the tectonic evolution of the Bay of Bengal and Bangladesh. The research has continued even after part of the team moved to UoH.
This enduring research allowed authors to comprehend the scenarios of continental breakups in various styles and geometry of the proto-ocean of the Bay of Bengal, thereby discussing the role of unified Earth processes that led to the formation of the most part of the Bangladesh tertiary over the ancient ocean floor, said the release.
The research work unveiled that oceanic rocks were accredited by seafloor spreading up to Kolkata and towards North, up to Rajmahal-Sylhet line, close to the Shillong Plateau.
In fact, these were primitive oceanic rocks of the Bay of Bengal, but were completely buried under large volumes of terrigenous sediments brought by the Ganges and the Brahmaputra river systems from the Himalayas. In the process, the sediments completely filled the proto-Bay of Bengal region and led to forming of a new landmass.
Presently, this becomes a part of the Bangladesh territory. The presence of continental slivers in global oceans either completely buried under the sediments or surviving as islands were identified earlier, but the existence of oceanic rocks beneath the landmass is identified for the first time, which may be a unique case on the planet Earth.