Current Status of Stratigraphy of the Proterozoic Cuddapah Basin, Southern India

ABSTRACT The Cuddapah basin in southern India is one of the large Proterozoic basins with rich and strategic mineral resources. As a repository of sedimentary and tectonic records spanning from the Paleoproterozoic to the Neoproterozoic, the intracratonic Cuddapah basin holds vital clues to regional crustal development, paleogeography and tectonic underpinnings of passive margin sedimentation. In this article, a brief overview of the stratigraphy of the basin is presented with emphasis on recent developments in our understanding of the physical stratigraphy controlled by multiple unconformity bound sequences suggesting multiple transgressions of the sea, the emerging geochronological constraints, and broad sedimentary environments of different formation level units. Some issues of stratigraphic classification originating from allochthonus nature of the deformed rock successions of the Nallamalai fold belt have also been examined.