Was there an Intracontinental Rift Between India and Sri Lanka?

The nature of tectonic configuration between SE coast of India and NW coast of Sri Lanka has been a subject of considerable debate for over past two decades. In the present work, we analyse long wavelength gravity-magnetic, seismological, satellite imagery and related tectonic, geologic and geomorphic information over India, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Antarctica to suggest that no intracratonic rift could ever develop between India and Sri Lanka. It appears that in the erstwhile Gondwanaland, Sri Lanka rested in the Lutzo-Holm Bay of Antarctica and had the same relative paleoposition with respect to India as it has today, although a small scale translational and rotational motion as suggested by Yoshida et al. (1992) may not be ruled out. The study throws significant light on the paleoassembly of these continental fragments and suggests the possibility of weak mantle upwelling between India and Sri Lanka which may have resisted the formation of oceanic crust between them.