Abstract The west coast of India, extending from Sir Creek in the north to Kanyakumari in the south, is a trailing passive margin that bears the imprint of generally shore-parallel and less common orthogonal structural elements. The geomorphology of the marginal part of western India, mostly controlled by the three principal structural trends of NNW–SSE Dharwar, NE–SW Aravalli orogenies and west–east Narmada graben, displays a straight coastline. The coastal ocean current operates from April to October and the net sediment transport is from north to south with the longshore current. The continental shelf width varies from 345 km off Daman in the north to 120 km off Goa and tapers to 60 km off Kochi in the south. The western continental shelf of India has an area of about 310 000 km 2 , and is divided into an inner shelf with modern clayey silt and silty clay sediments with high organic matter and low carbonate content, and an outer shelf having relict carbonate sediments, coarse sands with low organic matter and high carbonates. The mid-shelf is rather uneven topographically, and the outer shelf is commonly interrupted by shore-parallel ridges and reefs with a relief of 2–18 m. Phosphatic limestone micronodules occur in the outer shelf.