The next few posts will focus on sedimentary rocks found far from the city of Mumbai, the metropolis which is the central theme of this substack.
Last week, at this time, I was dwarfed by the rock formations of Badami in the present-day state of Karnataka, the Indian Union. I was there with my well-traveled friends Kunal, Pravin, and Mansha. It was our first visit here, except for Pravin (who is the timekeeper at The Memory Palace), who had been here before and could not absorb everything this small part of the Deccan (the North Indian name for Southern India, a corruption of Dakshin/Dakkhin or South in Sanskrit and Prakrit) has preserved from the past during his earlier visit.
Badami is a little less than 700 kilometres from Mumbai. Still, during its time, it was a power that controlled the ports in and around Mumbai and is also said to have contributed to the construction of a part of the magnificent rock-cut cave temples at Elephanta.
Here are a few images of and from the rock-cut temples that overlook the town that once lent its name to an empire - The Badami Chalukyas.
According to Sedimentary Geologist Suvrat Kher, who is the go-to person on Twitter for Indians for any geological questions, this was how the rocks were formed:
"I recently visited the Chalukya style temples, and rock-cut monuments at Aihole, Pattadakal and Badami (6th -8th CE) in northern Karnataka and noticed some great sedimentary structures in the building stones. The term sedimentary structures refers to the shape and form sedimentary layers get sculpted into by the action of waves, currents, tides and wind during the deposition of the sediment. The size of the deposited sedimentary particles and the orientation of layers are a reflection of both the vigour of the currents and waves and the direction of the flow of water or wind.
These monuments are made up of Neoproterozoic age (900-800 million-year-old) sandstones. Geologists have recognized using detailed sedimentological analysis, that the sandstones formed mostly in a large braided river system that flowed in a northwesterly direction.
Between roughly 1800 -800 million years ago, over the course of a billion years, the Indian continental crust sagged due to various tectonic forces to form several long-lasting sedimentary basins. The Kaladgi Basin in which the Badami area sandstones were deposited is one such basin."
