Weathering and Mass Wasting in India

In India, there are four large hills and mountains near Mumbai and since Mumbai is close to the ocean, I decided to focus on the products of mass wasting, weathering, and erosion, which all are closely related, near Mumbai for this blog.

These are the hills and mountains in India. I am focusing mostly on the Western Ghats. Since the western Ghats are so close to the ocean it is easy to assume the rocks that will come from this time period will be breccia rocks, since they will be angular and unsorted.
Photo courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indiahills.png

To start I will focus on the landslide on the Bombay-Goa highway in 1983, yes a little outdated but the picture below illustrates how steep the hills are close to the road which, like in 1983, could create a landslide and instead of only 450 km of road destroyed, people could get hurt¹. Since the vegetation is so high on the slopes the slopes seem to be more stable now but if there were a loss of vegetation the hills may be in danger of toppling on top of the highway, especially since the climate is so wet.

This is a section of the Bombay-Goa highway. This picture illustrates how dangerous the drive is through. The steep slope and very visible rainfall are a beautiful equation for a dangerous situation if rock were to break. There has already been a landslide in '83, destroying a good portion of road.
Photo courtesy of http://www.rang7.com/photo/2822.htm

Since there are so many hills and mountains in India, weathering and erosion is a big thing. Oceans are typically where sediment from weathering and erosion create the future indicators of geologic time. In the pictures of the marble below you can see that jointing, where rocks break on weak planes, create cracks and fissures in the nice marble in Jabalpur, India, which is a form of physical weathering. There is also chemical weathering of the rocks in Jabalpur. The water pounding on the rocks can dissolve the minerals in the rocks, a process called dissolution. On the tips of the rocks you can see how the water carved to its current stream, where there is evidence of this dissolution. India is turning out to be a geomorphologist's dream.

These two pictures are of the Marble Rocks in Jabalpur. These rocks show evidence of dissolution.
Photo courtesy of http://www.hearty-india.com/2012/05/marble-rocks-jabalpur-picture-gallery.html

This picture is the same place as the two above only this picture illustrates the jointing that the rocks are going through, also you can see where the weak planes are in the rock.
Photo courtesy of http://travel.sulekha.com/visiting-jabalpur-bhedaghat-marble-rocks-bheraghat_india-travelogue-4754.htm

Citations

1. South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation | Home. South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation | Home. N.p., 09. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://www.saarc-sec.org/>.