Rajneesh Bhutani
Pondicherry University, Puducherry
Rajneesh Bhutani is a professor at the Department of Earth Sciences, Pondicherry Uni-versity, Puducherry, where he joined in 2002, after serving in the Geological Survey of India, Pune, for two years. He completed his PhD on Ar/Ar thermochronological studies of trans-Himalaya in the Ladakh sector from Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, and M.S. University, Baroda. He has been awarded DST’s Young Scientist Award dur-ing the 14th Group Monitoring Meet, February 2003. He has also been awarded DST’s BOYSCAST fellowship to work on U/Pb zircon geochronology at the Washington Univer-sity in St. Louis, USA, during April 2007 to March 2008. He was also awarded the best teacher award of the Pondicherry University based on the students’ evaluation, six times, from the year 2010 to 2016. He has authored 29 papers in peer-reviewed journals, presented 35 papers in symposia and participated in 10 projects funded by various national funding agencies.
Session 2C: Symposium: ‘Earth Science of the North-East’
Chairperson: R Ramesh, National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar
Origin of Manipur Ophiolite Complex, Indo-Myanmar Range, North-eastern India View Presentation
The Indo-Myanmar Range (IMR) forms the eastern boundary of the Indian plate separating it from the Burmese plate. The IMR, in the states of Nagaland and Manipur, is charac-terised by the outcrops of ophiolite obducted during the Himalayan orogeny. However, the origin of these rocks has not been understood unequivocally. For the first time, Nd isotope data of the serpentinized peridotite of the IMR has been generated. These isotope data combined with the elemental data provide better constraints on the sources and processes of origin of these rocks. It is proposed that the dominant magmatic rocks in the IMR, i.e., the serpentinised peridotite represent the residual buoyant fore-arc mantle, which has been modified by the interaction of the subduction-zone fluids. The mafic plutonic and volcanic rocks in the IMR represent melt extracted to variable extents due to variable amounts of partial melting.