Abstract
This chapter deals with the geological evolution of the Bengal basin in the context of plate tectonics in the South Asian region. The basin contains thick early Cretaceous–Holocene sedimentary successions. It is estimated that half a million kilometre3 of sediment has been deposited so far, leading to formation of the largest delta and associated plain land of the world. The basin filling and delta building got an accelerated momentum during late Holocene period when the Himalayan glaciers decelerated contributing huge sediment loads into the GBM system. The Bengal basin has experienced recurrent marine transgression and regression during preceding geological ages. The fluvio-marine process of sediment accretion as we see today in Sundarban has gradually shifted southwards during last 20 million years. The coastline along the Indian Sundarban in the west has been encroaching inland due to subsidence of land and rising sea level but the Meghna estuary in Bangladesh has been growing southwards due to accretion.
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Rudra, K. (2018). Evolution of the Bengal Basin. In: Rivers of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta. Geography of the Physical Environment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76544-0_2
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