The Bengal Depositional System: From rift to orogeny

The Bengal Depositional System is defined as the surface depositional environments and the underlying sediment accumulation extending from the alluvial, lacustrine and paludal sediments of the lower Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers, across the Bengal Delta, the Bangladesh continental shelf and slope to and including the Bengal Fan. Together it is one of the greatest sediment accumulations in the modern world, and is comparable in volume to the great sediment accumulations of the geological past. The history of formation started with the Mesozoic breakup of Eastern Gondwanaland, the northward drift of India, its collision with the southern margin of Asia, rotation and bending of the western Sunda Arc, and the penetration of the Indian continental mass into southern Asia. During this history, the regional tectonics evolved and sources and provenance of the sediments changed with the ultimate uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas.