India collides with Asia
A continent travelling twenty centimetres a year runs into another one, and neither can subduct.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 2 million years
- Known to
- ± 3 million years
- Era
- Eocene, Cenozoic
After a 6,000-kilometre journey north from Gondwana, India makes contact with Asia. The onset is dated by the disappearance of marine sediments between the two, by the first appearance of Asian mammals in India, and by palaeomagnetism, with most estimates clustering around 50 million years ago — though proposals range from 60 to 35 and the argument is genuinely open. Because continental crust is too buoyant to subduct, the collision crumples instead of consuming, and it is still going: India continues pushing north at about five centimetres a year.