Lower Vindhyan Succession as a Condensed Horizon in Central India

Condensation is considered as a function of a sharp decline in sedimentation rate and accumulation of highly thin succession embracing a broad stratigraphic interval. Condensed sections are fairly common in various sedimentary basins and their investigation is important as they are regionally reliable marker horizons for sequence stratigraphic correlation. Elevated concentration of glauconite is essentially found confined to condensed sections. Throughout the earth’s history, authigenesis driven glauconite genesis have been correlated with rising sea level and even interpreted as a manifestation of the ‘Greenhouse’ conditions. In ancient depositional systems as well, the occurrence of glauconite rich layers is often linked with marine flooding surfaces. Lower Vindhyan succession of Palaeoproterozoic age in central India constitutes one of the systems in which the presence of authigenic glauconite has been found associated with the stratigraphic condensation. These sediments often referred as Semri Group of rocks show glauconite rich layers in relatively thinner sections. The glauconite bearing condensed sections of Semri succession in central India has provided a regional correlation bench mark to trace basin wide unconformities for about 200 km. Here, we present the sequence stratigraphic framework of lower Vindhyan succession in Bundelkhand region around Hirapur for the first time.