Bengal Basin by Abu Khairul Bashar

The Bengal Basin is one of the most extensive sediment reservoirs in the world and constitutes the lower floodplain and delta plain deposits of India and Bangladesh, at the mouth of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna River systems. The Ganga-Brahmaputra River systems together carry the world's largest sediment load, 80% of which is delivered during the four monsoon months (Goodbred and Kuehl, 2000). As a consequence, the Bengal Basin acts as huge sediment sink with wide dispersal systems often related to a wide range of climate change. The basin is bounded by the Indian craton on the west and the Indo-Burmese fold belts on the east. It can be broadly divided into a stable shelf and a foredeep separated by a deep seismic hinge zone. Basin sediments overlie Gondwanan basement and vary in thickness from a few kilometers on the stable shelf to more than 16 km in the foredeep.