"About 220 million years ago, India was an island situated off the Australian coast (author's note: At that time, Australia and Antarctica were supposedly attached to Africa and much more to the west than they are now), and separated from the Asian continent by a vast ocean called the Tethys Sea. When Pangaea broke apart about 200 million years ago, India began to move northward." ^{3 pg 11}

"The mid-ocean ridge visible in the lower left of the image is largely responsible for India's northerly movement." ³

1. We know that India was next to Australia and Antarctica just off Africa 250 MYA because unique fossils and plant pollen from that time are found only in these three places.

2. We know where India is located now.

3. If we draw a relatively straight line between India's position 250 MYA and now, it could have passed over the Reunion Island hotspot approximately 65 MYA

1. No Domal Uplift — If the huge lava deposits at the Deccan traps in India were the result of the Indian subcontinent riding over a mantle plume, then the underlying rock should show long-term domal uplift at or near the site. It doesn't. Dr. Sheth reports:

"The flatness of the pre-Deccan landscape constructed on various older rocks in central India, the horizontality of the Deccan basalt flows over long distances, and laterites found on the pre-Deccan landscape, together form compelling evidence for pre-Deccan planation surfaces and long-term tectonic stability prior to the eruptions. This, along with a near-universal absence of indicators of pre-eruption uplift throughout the province, runs counter to the idea that a large plume head produced regional domal uplift, the current drainage pattern and Deccan flood basalt volcanism." ^{10 pg 13}

This lack of domal uplifting just doesn't occur if a plate is riding over a plume in the usual scenario. Dr. Sheth notes:

"Significant domal uplift (1-4 km depending on parameters such as plume temperature) is predicted 10-20 million years before flood volcanism." ^{10 pg 2}

This is a fatal blow to the standard plume theory for the Deccan traps. There should be domal uplift, but there isn't any. Therefore, the Deccan traps would have to be explained in another way. Dr. Sheth offers large-scale plate dynamics as a possible solution. However, he does note that the shape of the Deccan traps (almost circular) and the huge volume of flood basalt lava in a short-term eruption period (half a million to a million years) is more compatible with a plume head eruption. ¹⁰

2. Western Side Volcanism — Dr. Sheth reports that the entire western side of India (along the Western Ghats mountains) is underlain with basaltic lava. The lava is oldest at the Deccan traps (65 MYA) and it ends near the southern tip of India, around 60 MYA. However there is some volcanism back up near the Deccan traps (about 600 miles north of the tip) dated at 60.5 MYA. There are no seamounts extending in to the sea from the southern tip of India, despite the fact that the volcanic underlayment at the tip was still substantial. ⁹ What kind of plume does this? Not any Standard Theory plume.

3. Initial Volcanism Latitude — According to Dr. Sheth, the Reunion Island hotspot is located at 21 degrees south latitude. The lava at the Deccan traps was formed at approximately 30 degrees south latitude. The Standard Theory sees hotspots as fixed in the mantle. The Standard Theory does not explain this paradox in any satisfactory way. ^{9 pg 10}

1. It answers the objections raised by Dr. Sheth, and, in fact, offers explanations for his findings.

2. It is verified by an abundant trail of physical evidence left behind during the Indian continent's 65 million year journey.

1. No Domal Uplift — The fact that there is no domed uplift at the site of the Deccan traps volcanism is exactly what we would expect to see with this new theory. The cosmic impact at Chicxulub would have sent cataclysmic waves of earthquakes rumbling through the lithosphere. Because the Earth is spherical in shape, these quakes would all have met at the antipode of the impact site and pulverized the rock in that area. This pulverized rock would have offered no frictional or shear resistance to the pressurized magma rushing to the surface and spewing forth. There would be no reason for doming. The hole should be roughly circular, which Dr. Sheth says it was. Furthermore, because the pressurized magma would rise in a plume, it would not be surprising that the result would have the characteristics of a plume head eruption. Thus, we would expect that there would be no doming effect.

2. Western Side Volcanism — The western side volcanism would be the logical result of the Indian continent moving northwest over the much slower moving hotspot in the next several million years following the Chicxulub impact. The hotspot would still be emitting lava as it cut through the lithosphere like a plasma torch. However, the speed of the continent would be so great that the hotspot could not create enough pressure to break through the surface … the western side of India's surface would not be all fractured like the rock at the antipodal area and the surface would move by too quickly.

Just like the Hawaiian Islands' hotspot, which can erupt on three different islands at once (including the new one under the sea), the even bigger and more active Indian hotspot could spew lava all along its cut trench as the Indian continent began to pull away from it.

Therefore, there is no problem having lava near Mumbai (just south of the Deccan traps) dated to 60.5 MYA and lava at the tip of India at 60 MYA. Once the Indian continent pulled away from the hotspot, the hotspot would begin creating its own set of hotspot islands … known today as Indonesia.

Furthermore, this new scenario even explains the timing of the tilted uplift of the western side of India, prior to the raising up of the Western Ghats mountains. Dr. Sheth notes the strange phenomenon that the rivers in the Indian peninsula all drain from the west to the east. He speaks of the findings of others:

"… the drainage developed subsequent to the eruption of the Deccan lavas. The newly formed lava field could have had a regional eastward slope. However, they also noted that the drainage is antecedent (prior to) the uplift of the Sahydri Range (part of the Western Ghats)." ^{10 pg 6}

This eastern drainage would occur because of the uplift caused by the subsurface lava emitted by the slower-moving hotspot as the faster continent began to outdistance it. The hotspot would have systematically uplifted the western edge as the edge moved over that hotspot.

The raising of the western mountain ranges comes much later, when the Indian continent, after running into extreme resistance from the Himalayan highlands in the east, shifted to the northwest where there was less resistance. Naturally, the tail of the Indian continent followed along, and raised up the Western Ghats mountains as it plowed into the oceanic plate on its western side.

3. Initial Volcanism Latitude — Dr. Sheth states that the volcanism at the Deccan Traps occurred at approximately 30ºS latitude. ^{9 pg 10} I do not know how accurate this finding is, nor do I know the exact latitude for the Chicxulub impact 65 MYA.

However, it is not difficult to create a model that meets these criteria, as I have done in the illustrations at the end of Chapter 2.2 in Section II of this book. These illustrations show the more speculative version, but they could be easily modified to fit the "safe, conservative" version.

1. Sunda Trench — Created as the Indian continent (moving north but arcing to the east due to the coriolis effect) rubbed up against the Asian plate and then pulled away as the tail of India came by later.

2. Java & Sumatra — Pushed up land along the central and eastern parts of Java and Sumatra dating to approximately 60 MYA, whereas the western sides of these islands are mostly the creation of volcanism as the hotspot traveled along that edge.