Discussion
The Deccan Plateau is composed largely of which rock?
Answer: C
Correct answer: Basalt
The northwestern Deccan is built of basalt, laid down as vast lava flows about 66 million years ago. The formation is known as the Deccan Traps, from the Swedish for step, because erosion leaves the successive flows as a stepped landscape. The eruptions were among the largest in Earth’s history, covering perhaps half a million square kilometres to a depth of two kilometres in places, and their timing close to the Cretaceous extinction has made them a serious rival to the asteroid impact as a cause of it. Weathering of this basalt produces the black cotton soil, or regur, that covers Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and parts of Gujarat and Karnataka - clay-rich, moisture-retentive, and suited to cotton without irrigation. The southern and eastern parts of the plateau are older crystalline rock, chiefly granite and gneiss, which weathers instead into red soil. The plateau tilts gently eastward, which is why its rivers flow to the Bay of Bengal.
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