top of page

What's Below Your Feet!

Writer's picture: Santosh SisolekarSantosh Sisolekar

Updated: May 29, 2023

What's below your feet? (when you are in Maharashtra, India)


Below your feet is lava! But do not worry. It has cooled and solidified millions of years ago. You are standing upon the Deccan plateau, the Deccan which Maharashtra is for in the whole world. All those mountains, hills, and the black-coloured rocks you can see everywhere in Maharashtra, were once hot lavas - 65 Million years ago. Lava fountained through huge cracks in the ground called 'fissures’ which used to be kilometres long. Then this extremely hot lava flowed for long distances from the fissure.


Some lava flows are found to be more than a thousand of kilometres long! Many such lava were stacked one upon another, over time. These eruptions lasted almost 15-20 million years! This formed a huge plateau which we refer to as the "Deccan Plateau' today. Geologists call it the Deccan Volcanic Province. The plateau has been carved into hills and mountains by wind and water (mainly rivers), also giving rise to the Sahyadris -- the Western Ghats. You may see Some dark black horizontal bands on almost every mountain when you visit Mahabaleshwar. Those bands are nothing but lava flows stacked upon each other. We can see many different structures and patterns formed by those from lava flows, which geologists from all around the world like to study. Some of the structures and patterns still remain mysterious to us...


What's below your feet? It's something special, it's lava!


43 views0 comments

Comments


Commenting has been turned off.

AGATE - A geology and astronomy awareness, education and popularization program by sonit.org

bottom of page