Abstract This chapter attempts an understanding of the Proterozoic Vindhyan Basin history in the broad framework of central India. Although the entire Vindhyan Supergroup is within the scope of this work, particular attention is paid to the little-known northwestern fringe exposures. Distinctive facies assemblages and diverse palaeocurrents in these exposures of the Lower Vindhyan play a pivotal role in the interpretation. Analysis of outcrop and subsurface data that extend under the Gangetic alluvium to the north of the Vindhyan outcrops further supports the hypothesis that an east–west-elongated basement ridge initially separated the master Vindhyan Basin from smaller contemporary basins to the north. Deposition took place in isolated lacustrine and fluvial basins north of the divide and largely in a marine realm south. Dextral shear accompanying rifting generated ridges that criss-crossed the Lower Vindhyan seafloor to the south. The uniform character of the Upper Vindhyan throughout, nevertheless, testifies to later drowning of the divide and unification of all of the basins as a consequence of regional tilt northward. However, the extended Vindhyan Sea was restricted by a second east–west-elongated ridge from merger with the contemporary Proterozoic sea further north, disparate sediments of which have been encountered in a few drill cores only.

Abstract There 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.