Andaman booklet aw.FH10 - Zoological Survey of India

i.e., Recent to Sub-Recent (i.e., less than 10,000 years). In general,
it is believed, that the mountain ridges of the island were formed
at the expanse of a narrow but deep oceanic furrow during Late
Mesozoic Period (100 million years). The older sediments of
Mesozoic formed the basement for younger deposits. The history
of later deposition is that of an inconsistent basin i.e. associated
with movement, volcanism and deposition, side by side with
igneous intrusions. Over the older sediments, at the deeper part
of the sea bottoms, there was rich accumulation of siliceous tests
of radiolarians, possibly and deposition of sediments of late
Cretaceous to Oligocene.
During Oligocene, the islands faced a tremendous earth movement
resulting in mountain ridges, although well within the sea. Some
of the ridges were suited for the growth of corals and also had the
rising tendency for developing the reef islands. As such, formation
of Rut islands (West Coral Reef, Middle Coral Reef, Chaura Coral
Reef, Sambero Channel Coral Reef, and Car Nicobar Coral Reef) in
this region is attributed to these and also to the deposition of
limestone. The present configuration was, however, achieved by
these islands only about 26 million years ago. Two of the islands,
Narcondam and barren Islands are of volcanic origin. The former
is an apparently extinct volcano, while the latter is still active.
Geography
The Andaman group of islands is made up of North, Middle and
South Andaman Islands (Table 1). The Ritchie's Archipelago is to the
east of Middle Andaman and the Tarmugli group of islands lies to
the southwest of South Andaman. Rutland is situated off the southern
coast of South Andaman, and Little Andaman forms the southern
end of the Andaman group of islands. Port Blair in South Andaman,
is the capital of Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The Nicobar group has twenty-four islands, which cluster into three
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