Southern India

Credit: MODIS team; NASA, Posted on: Friday, 25 March 2005, 03:02 CST Download full size image

Straddling the Arabian Sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east, and bounded by the Himalayan Range to the north, India occupies the majority of the Indian subcontinent. Resting on a tectonic plate that is independent of the Asian continent, it is still moving north and grinding at super-slow speeds against the Tibetan Plateau, creating the Himalayan Range in the process. The southern end of India (the largest nation on the subcontinent) is pictured here in this true-color Terra MODIS image from March 16, 2005.

The Deccan Plateau dominates southern India, bounded by the Western and Eastern Ghats on either side, and the Indo-Gangetic plain to the north. This plateau is made up of layers of different volcanic rock, mostly basalt, that were laid down by volcanic eruptions at the end of the Cretaceous period. Today it is a rich source for minerals like mica, iron, diamonds, and gold, particularly near the top center of the image in the region around the city of Hyderabad.

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