Abdullah Khan*, Meradul Islam and Anis

Department of Geology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh-202002, India

*E-mail: abdullahgeology@gmail.com

Abstract

The Permo-Carboniferous glacigenic Talchir succession is well exposed along the western margin of Son-Mahanadi Gondwana basin. This succession is unconformably overlying the granitoid rocks of Precambrian age. A detailed lithofacies analysis is carried out of the Talchir succession exposed in Gungutta river section near the village Libra, Sarguja district in southern part of Son-Mahanadi basin, Chhattisgarh, India. Earlier workers considered Talchir sediments as product of glacial, glaciofluvial and glaciolacustrine environments. The detailed lithofacies analysis indicates that the Talchir succession is a product of sedimentation, which was subsequently reworked and emplaced in front of ice grounding line. Moreover, lithofacies and depositional mechanism establishes overlap of wave agitated shoreface-shelf sediments due to marine transgression caused by glacier melting. The Talchir of Gungutta river succession represents a gradual amelioration of paleoclimate, deglaciation and related coastal onlapping predominantly in ice-marginal storm-tide interactive shallow shelf depositional environments.

Keywords: Lithofacies, ice-marginal shallow shelf, Talchir succession, Gondwana basin, Chhattisgarh, India.