Once upon a time, 65 MYA, the Australian continent was resting peacefully in the South Pacific Ocean.

The Australian continent was shaped like an upside-down South America, with a long northern tail and a ridge of mountains (the Great Dividing Range) running down the eastern end, like a spine.

Then, all of a sudden, a large six-mile-in-diameter meteor slammed into the Earth at Chicxulub in Mexico. The meteor created immense destruction at the impact site. The huge impact sent earthquake shockwaves through the lithosphere and a huge pulse of pressure through the liquid mantle.

The sleepy Australian continent felt bad for its North American cousin continent, but it also felt secure in the knowledge that it was located on the opposite side of the Earth from the impact. No worries.

After all, being located farther away from the impact than any other point on the Earth should convey the best possible situation for surviving the impact effects, right?

Bad idea.

Unfortunately for sleepy Australia, the area around the antipode of a large impact site is one of the worst places to be.

Within a few hours, the sleepy Australian continent saw part of its tail uplifted and the small end of its tail thrown apart. A big, bad Indian continent was uplifted from the ocean floor right in front (to the north) of the Australian continent and the tail of the Indian continent took most of its material right from the beginning of the tail of the Australian continent. The rest of the Australian continent's tail was forced apart and became its own separate tectonic plate (the Philippines Plate).

As a final insult, the twisting motion the northern movement of the new Indian Continent pulled Australia northward, further separating it from its former top half, which now continued to drift and sink down to the South Pole, where it became East Antarctica.

The New Indian continent was imbued with significant northwesterly motion by the directional energy of the meteor's impact at Chicxulub. The directional energy was so strong that it pushed the sea floor (a separate oceanic plate) in front of it to the north and west, forcing it to subduct beneath both the New Indian continent and the Asian plate to the north. At the exact antipode of the Chicxulub impact, the Indian continent was endowed with a prodigious hotspot, which spewed forth magma and noxious gases for up to 100,000 years on a regular basis and intermittently for up to a million years (creating the Deccan traps in India. Author's note: Traps are stepped hillsides created by basalt lava flows).

(Author's note: There is also the possibility that the top portion of the Indian continent actually sheared off at the level of the ocean floor and moved northward as a huge, delaminated hunk of rock. This movement would be much like a glacier flowing down a valley. The glacier moves much more quickly when it is lubricated with water from the underside of the glacier.

The relatively soft, water-lubricated ocean floor might make a relatively low- friction base to move across.

Although this shearing possibility has some attractive qualities, it also introduces a completely foreign and unproven mechanism of movement. Therefore, I prefer to use a model of rapid, forced subduction (from both ends) due to extreme directional pressure.)

Before we examine the path of the Indian continent on its journey northward, we must deal with the biggest obstacle that exists for understanding this entire scenario. This obstacle is the perceived location of India 65 MYA.

The Standard Theory shows India to have been approximately 4,000 miles to the east of where the antipode of the Chicxulub impact would have been 65 MYA.

The website www.platetectonics.com shows a map that illustrates the path of India according to the Standard Theory.^{3 pg 11} According to the map, India started out much farther to the south and west (originally attached to Australia and Antarctica as part of Pangaea 250 MYA) and then moved up in almost a straight line (and in its present shape) to its present day location.

According to the Standard Theory:

"About 220 million years ago, India was an island situated off the Australian coast (author's note: At that time, Australia and Antarctica were supposedly attached to Africa and much more to the west), and separated from the Asian continent by a vast ocean called the Tethys Sea. When Pangaea broke apart about 200 million years ago, India began to move northward." ^{3 pg 11}

Therefore, according to the Standard Theory, while Australia was moving east, India was moving north.

Further, the Standard Theory states that the huge volcanism seen at the Deccan traps in India was a result of the Indian subcontinent passing over the Reunion Island hotspot off the coast of Africa approximately 65 MYA.

And the reason for India moving northeast and crashing into Asia: "The mid-ocean ridge visible in the lower left of the image is largely responsible for India's northerly movement."³

The logic of the Standard Theory is as follows:

1. We know that India was next to Australia and Antarctica just off Africa 250 MYA because unique fossils and plant pollen from that time are found only in these three places.

2. We know where India is located now.

3. If we draw a relatively straight line between India's position 250 MYA and now, it could have passed over the Reunion Island hotspot approximately 65 MYA

So, what's wrong with that?

There are several physical reasons and one big theoretical reason why the Standard Theory does not stand up to close examination.

Dr. Hetu C. Sheth of the Department of Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, India has examined the physical evidence and has found several areas of contention.

These are:

1. No Domal Uplift — If the huge lava deposits at the Deccan traps in India were the result of the Indian subcontinent riding over a mantle plume, then the underlying rock should show long-term domal uplift at or near the site. It doesn't. Dr.Sheth reports:

"The flatness of the pre-Deccan landscape constructed on various older rocks in central India, the horizontality of the Deccan basalt flows over long distances, and laterites found on the pre-Deccan landscape, together form compelling evidence for pre-Deccan planation surfaces and long-term tectonic stability prior to the eruptions. This, along with a near-universal absence of indicators of pre-eruption uplift throughout the province, runs counter to the idea that a large plume head produced regional domal uplift, the current drainage pattern and Deccan flood basalt volcanism."^{10 pg 13}

This lack of domal uplifting just doesn't occur if a plate is riding over a plume in the usual scenario. Dr. Sheth notes:

"Significant domal uplift (1-4 km depending on parameters such as plume temperature) is predicted 10-20 million years before flood volcanism."^{10 pg 2}

This is a fatal blow to the standard plume theory for the Deccan traps. There should be domal uplift, but there isn't any. Therefore, the Deccan traps would have to be explained in another way. Dr. Sheth offers large-scale plate dynamics as a possible solution. However, he does note that the shape of the Deccan traps (almost circular) and the huge volume of flood basalt lava in a short-term eruption period (half a million to a million years) is more compatible with a plume head eruption.¹⁰

2. Western Side Volcanism — Dr. Sheth reports that the entire western side of India (along the Western Ghats mountains) is underlain with basaltic lava. The lava is oldest at the Deccan traps (65 MYA) and it ends near the southern tip of India, around 60 MYA. However there is some volcanism back up near the Deccan traps (about 600 miles north of the tip) dated at 60.5 MYA. There are no seamounts extending in to the sea from the southern tip of India, despite the fact that the volcanic underlayment at the tip was still substantial.⁹ What kind of plume does this? Not any Standard Theory plume.

3. Initial Volcanism Latitude — According to Dr. Sheth, the Reunion Island hotspot is located at 21 degrees south latitude. The lava at the Deccan traps was formed at approximately 30 degrees south latitude. The Standard Theory sees hotspots as fixed in the mantle. The Standard Theory does not explain this paradox in any satisfactory way.^{9 pg 10}

In addition to these physical reasons that argue against the Standard Theory's version of the position and voyage of the Indian subcontinent from 65 MYA to the present, there is also one big theoretical reason that argues against it.

The big theoretical reason for revising the Standard Theory is the competing theoretical model put forward in this book. While both theories represent possible geological histories of India, Ben's Antipodal Impact Theory's version has several advantages. These advantages are:

1. It answers the objections raised by Dr. Sheth, and, in fact, offers explanations for his findings.

2. It is verified by an abundant trail of physical evidence left behind during the Indian continent's 65 million year journey.

First, let's take a look at the objections that Dr. Sheth raises concerning the Standard Theory and compare how these objections relate to the model described by Ben's Antipodal Impact Theory".

1. No Domed Uplift — The fact that there is no domed uplift at the site of the Deccan traps volcanism is exactly what we would expect to see with this new theory. The cosmic impact at Chicxulub would have sent cataclysmic waves of earthquakes rumbling through the lithosphere. Because the Earth is spherical in shape, these quakes would all have met at the antipode of the impact site and pulverized the rock in that area. This pulverized rock would have offered no frictional or shear resistance to the pressurized magma rushing to the surface and spewing forth. There would be no reason for doming. The hole should be roughly circular, which Dr. Sheth says it was. Furthermore, because the pressurized magma would rise in a plume, it would not be surprising that the result would have the characteristics of a plume head eruption. The continental uplift would have happened all at once, with relatively equal pressure on all of the uplifted material (the pressure would equalize rather quickly in a liquid). Thus, we would expect that there would be no doming effect.

2. Western Side Volcanism — The western side volcanism would be the logical result of the Indian continent moving northwest over the much slower moving hotspot in the next several million years following the Chicxulub impact. The hotspot would still be emitting lava as it cut through the lithosphere like a plasma torch. However, the speed of the continent would be so great that the hotspot could not create enough pressure to break through the surface … the western side of India's surface would not be all fractured like the rock at the antipodal area and the surface would move by too quickly.

Just like the Hawaiian Islands' hotspot, which can erupt on three different islands at once (including the new one under the sea), the even bigger and more active Indian hotspot could spew lava all along its cut trench as the Indian continent began to pull away from it.

Therefore, there is no problem having lava near Mumbai (just south of the Deccan traps) dated to 60.5 MYA and lava at the tip of India at 60 MYA. Once the Indian continent pulled away from the hotspot, the hotspot would begin creating its own set of hotspot islands … known today as Indonesia.

Furthermore, this new scenario even explains the timing of the tilted uplift of the western side of India, prior to the raising up of the Western Ghats mountains. Dr. Sheth notes the strange phenomenon that the rivers in the Indian peninsula all drain from the west to the east. He speaks of the findings of others:

"… the drainage developed subsequent to the eruption of the Deccan lavas. The newly formed lava field could have had a regional eastward slope. However, they also noted that the drainage is antecedent (prior to) the uplift of the Sahydri Range (part of the Western Ghats)." ^{10 pg 6}

This eastern drainage would occur because of the uplift caused by the subsurface lava emitted by the slower-moving hotspot as the faster continent began to outdistance it. The hotspot would have systematically uplifted the western edge as the edge moved over that hotspot.

The raising of the western mountain ranges comes much later, when the Indian continent, after running into extreme resistance from the Himalayan highlands in the east, shifted to the northwest where there was less resistance. Naturally, the tail of the Indian continent followed along, and raised up the Western Ghats mountains as it plowed into the oceanic plate on its western side.

3. Initial Volcanism Latitude — Dr. Sheth states that the volcanism at the Deccan Traps occurred at approximately 30ºS latitude.^{9 pg 10} I do not know how accurate this finding is, nor do I know the exact latitude for the Chicxulub impact 65 MYA, nor do I know the exact location of the Australian continent 65 MYA.

However, it is not difficult to create a model that meets all of these criteria (as I have done in the Chapter 8 illustrations).

Now it is time to look at the voyage that the Indian continent began 65 MYA and to examine the debris field that it left behind.

In fact, the islands and land forms of the area between Australia and Asia are more properly seen as a debris field, resulting from four separate but related events. These events are:

1. Continental Uplift — The uplift of the continent of India can be seen as a hydraulic elevating event related to the impact of a cosmic object at Chicxulub 65 MYA. The angled nature of the off-center impact would have transferred directional energy to the earth's mantle. This directional energy, streaming around the heavy earth's core, would have resulted in the formation of the uplifted Indian continent … a continent in the shape of a "blob with a tail" and a continent with a powerful forward momentum in the direction of the northwest.

While the "blob" part of the Indian continent was uplifted from the sea floor, most of the tail was uplifted and separated from the beginning of the tail of the Australian continent. This continental uplifting eruption not only took a triangular chunk out of the Australian continent's tail, but it also fractured the middle of Australia's tail and sent the pieces moving away (but not too far from their original positions).

Thus, the island of New Guinea was separated from the continent of Australia. It is relatively easy to see, in an Alfred-Wegener-kind-of-moment, how New Guinea fits back into Australia, and, with a slight twist of the island, how its mountains continue the chain of the Great Dividing Range. This mountain range continues on farther to the north into Borneo, the Philippines and even to Taiwan. Borneo and the other islands were pushed north (and Borneo was later dragged to the east by the second event).

2. Continental Movement of the "Blob" — The new Indian continent, having been given tremendous forward momentum to the northwest by the rotational transfer of energy from the Chicxulub impact, moved rapidly in that direction, with the "blob" part of the continent forcing rapid subduction at both ends of the sea floor.

As the continent moved north in an arc (being a surface phenomenon, and affected by the Coriolis effect, it gradually moved to the north and later to the east), the eastern edge of the "blob" pushed up land along the inside of the arc in which it was moving (the Thailand and Malaysian peninsula, as well as the eastern half of Sumatra. The western part of Sumatra was formed by the fourth event), while pulling that area slightly northward, as well (producing the slight northward move of Borneo as compared to the rest of Australia and its fractured tail, which was moving northward, but not as fast.).

3. Continental Movement of the "Tail" — The tail of the Indian continent followed behind the blob, and, because it followed the same arc described by the blob, it veered a bit to the west and pulled the land apart to the east of it, creating the Sunda trench. In making the tight turn of the arc, the beginning of the tail pushed up the Andaman, Nicobar, Banyak and Mentawai islands to the east of the Sunda tranch (This arc turn is much like a long truck making a turn … the middle and back of the truck will run over the curb if the driver doesn't make a wide turn. The blob was not a good driver. The only thing that prevented even more pile up of land at those islands was the fact that the tail had no strong connection to the lower surface, the way a truck's rear wheels would. The tail was free to pull out to the west and it did. This enhanced the pulling-apart effect of the Sunda trench.).

After examining the islands and seamounts of the Tonga chain (see Appendix II), I realize that the Andaman, Nicobar and other islands may have been the creation of "reluctant subduction," as was the case in the Tonga chain. The Indian tail may not so much have pushed them up as deepened the trench. Trenches, especially deep ones, almost force subduction to occur.

The Sunda trench is often referred to as a double trench, because there seem to be two separate lines of creation to it. It may well be that one line was created by the eastern edge of the blob and the other by the tail.³⁶

The tail had a further adventure in store for it once the blob crashed into the Asian mainland. As the blob encountered increasing resistance while folding up the Himalayan mountains in the east, some of the blob and all of the tail slid and pivoted over to an area of less resistance. The top of the tail split away from the land that it had pushed up in Burma. In another Alfred-Wegener-kind-of-moment, it is easy to see that the east coast of India fits nicely into the west coast of Burma.

As the Indian tail moved west and north, it encountered resistance on its western side. This resistance raised up the Western Ghats mountains, caused the bend near the bottom of the peninsula and the eventual break-off of the tip (Sri Lanka).

4.Movement of the Follow-on Hotspot - At the antipode of the Chicxulub impact 65 MYA, huge earthquake forces from the impact came together from all directions in a colossal hammer blow to the Earth's crust at that point. The Earth's crust would be pulverized. This weak spot would provide the perfect place for magma under pressure to escape to the surface, creating a huge hotspot.

This hotspot would not be stationary. It would have the same strong thrust of momentum as the continent of India and in the same direction. However, the hotspot would be an anchored characteristic … anchored to the mantle … whereas the Indian continent would be a surface characteristic, floating (in a directed motion) on top of the mantle. .

The hotspot would move in more of a straight line to the northwest. Its path would not appear to be a straight line because it would move (much like a plasma torch cutting through the earth's crust) through latitudes where the surface of the earth is moving faster and then (after crossing the equator), slower.

The hotspot, although imparted with the same initial momentum as the Indian continent, would move more slowly because it would have a more difficult task, cutting through the crust rather than forcing rapid subduction along the surface.

The initial location of the hotspot would be below the center of the blob, near the beginning of the tail, due to the blob being uplifted slightly past the antipode because of the directional power of the impact force.

The initial eruption of the hotspot would be massive and would be within the boundaries of the new continent. However, after several million years, the continent would far outdistance the hotspot. Future eruptions would form their own islands, starting with East Timor and moving up through Java and onto the west side of Sumatra.

It is especially interesting to notice how the line of the moving hotspot veers slightly to the west after crossing the equator, confirming the anchored nature of the hotspot as opposed to the Coriolis-affected remains of the Indian continent phenomena (the Andaman islands, the Sunda trench, etc.)., which all veered to the east.

This brings us to something that I will call "The Baseball Theory of Tandem Movement" for uplifted continents and their hotspots.

In a baseball game, when a batter hits a line drive and accidentally lets go of the bat at the exact time of impact, the bat and the ball go in the same direction. However, the ball usually goes much farther than the bat. Often the ball will go well into the outfield, while the bat is lucky to make it to the edge of the infield.

In baseball, the difference between the movement of these two objects can be explained by the difference in force applied to each object in relation to its weight. In relation to cosmic impacts, the difference in movement is descriptive of the difference between the movement of an antipodal hotspot and the movement of the uplifted continent associated with that hotspot. The uplifted continent, like the baseball, goes farther and faster than the hotspot, which is analogous to the baseball bat.

The reason for the faster movement of the uplifted continent is the fact that it encounters less resistance. The continent sits on top of the crust. The continent merely has to force subduction along the surface as it moves on its directional voyage. The hotspot, however, has to crash through miles of congealed rock all the way down to the mantle … a significantly more difficult and frictional journey.

As a result, the affected continent breaks away from the hotspot and moves forward, with the hotspot trailing after. In cases where there is an antipodal hotspot but no continental uplift, the hotspot has its own solo journey (analogous to a baseball hitter swinging at a ball and missing, but accidentally letting go of the bat).

Now we can follow the tandem trail of India and its hotspot.

The Indian continent was created by continental uplift at the antipode of the Chicxulub impact site 65 MYA. The original hotspot would have been located at the Deccan traps. According to the Baseball Theory of Tandem Movement, the Indian continent would have moved more quickly than its hotspot. However, its hotspot would be trailing behind in roughly the same path.

The Indonesian island chain, headed by the giant super-volcano at Lake Toba (the biggest super-volcano in the world) at the northwest end of the island of Sumatra and trailing a string of smaller, leftover-but-still-strong volcanoes, is an ideal candidate for the track of the Chicxulub antipodal hotspot.

The Indonesian island chain is the trail of the hotspot. The Indian continent, itself, created two sets of "islands". The first set of islands was gouged out by the eastern edge of the blob and the second set of islands was induced out by the tightly-turning tail by forced subduction.

The older, eastern sides of Java and Sumatra, as well as the Thailand and Malay peninsulas were created by the eastern edge of the continental blob. The chain of islands just off of the west coast of Indonesia are the result of the Indian continent's tightly turning tail.

These islands continue on up to the Nicobar and Andaman islands like a string of pearls on a necklace. Hansel and Gretel couldn't have left a better trail of breadcrumbs.

Another way to look at the evidence left behind by the uplift and movement of the Indian continent and the island arc created by the follow-on hotspot is to compare this evidence to tool marks that are found on today's manufactured products.

For instance, an experienced fastener engineer can examine a threaded bolt, look at the tool marks, and determine how it was made:

1. Small fin marks under the head of the bolt will indicate that the bolt was formed on an open die header, rather than a solid die header.

2. Very small concentric circles on a washer face under the head will indicate that the washer face was shaved, rather than cold formed.

3. The shape and striations on the screw threads will indicate whether they were formed by rolling, shaving or grinding.

4. The chamfered point at the thread end will show an irregular cutoff or a smooth shaved surface, depending upon whether it was cold formed or shaved.

5. The shape and verticality of the walls of the slot in the head will show if it was cold formed on the header or milled on a separate slotting machine.

In the same way, we can examine the tool marks left behind by the Indian continent and its follow-on hotspot.

These tool marks include:

1. The Sunda trench (created by the "pulling away" of the Indian continent's tail).

2. The Indonesian island arc (created by the follow-on hotspot).

3. The Thailand and Malaysian peninsulas (created by the eastern edge of the tight-turning Indian continent).

4. The Andaman and Nicobar islands and the islands off the eastern coast of Sumatra (pushed up by the tight-turning Indian tail from an already scoured bottom or created by forced subduction).

5. Borneo, the Philippines, New Guinea and Taiwan (the shattered remains of the Australian continent's tail).

6. The Himalayan mountains (created by the Indian continent crashing into Asia).

7. The shape of India (the triangular tail formed by the continental uplift and bent as it slid to the west, breaking off at the end of the tail, creating Sri Lanka).

8. The slope from west to east of the Indian plain (caused by by the uplift of the western side by the follow-on hotspot as the continent passed over it, as evidenced by the underlying layer of basalt lava).

9. The Western Ghats mountains (created as the Indian continent slid west after its initial collision with Asia was blunted).

10. The Bangladesh lowlands (created by the silt of the Ganges river over millions of years, after the Indian continent slid west, leaving a gap between India and Burma).

11. The Philippines plate (created from the Australian plate after the Indian tail and the follow-on hotspot cut it off from its parent).

The tool marks tell the tale.

In today's world of CSI, NCIS and other TV crime dramas, these tool marks could also be called forensic evidence. In the case of the uplift and movement of the Indian continent, there is more than enough forensic evidence for a conviction.

The concept of tool marks is also useful in looking at the evidence that is available for other, even older, major extinctions.

The Earth is an active planet. It moves and changes and erases tool marks over time. While the tool marks of the most recent major extinction event are still eminently visible, those from the more distant past have been ground away, eroded, subducted and covered over. These older tool marks can be tough to find. But that does not mean that they never existed.

This wearing away of earthly tool marks can be compared to the manufacture of bolts for the aerospace industry. Unlike common industrial bolts, high performance aerospace bolts cannot afford to have any marks that might lead to the propagation of a crack. Therefore, the surface of an aerospace bolt must go through a grinder (a very expensive process) to remove any marks. The result, to the eye of a fastener engineer who is used to seeing common industrial bolts, is a bolt that looks as though it was never manufactured. The evidence is gone.

We face the same problem with evidence for really ancient major extinctions.

Many people have suspected that the Chicxulub impact and the vast eruptions at the Deccan traps were related and that they led to the great extinction 65 MYA. However, finding a convincing connection has always been elusive.

It is as though we were playing the game of "Clue". We always thought that the solution to the murder was Colonel Mustard in the library with a rope. However, we couldn't find the rope, we weren't sure about the library and the Colonel always had a plausible-sounding alibi.

Now we've conclusively determined that it was the library and we've found the rope with the Colonel's DNA all over it.

The series of maps at the end of this chapter depicts the creation of the Indian continent 65 MYA and its journey during the past 65 million years.

Is this the exact model of what happened to the world at the antipode of the Chicxulub impact? Maybe not. But, it's very close to that.

What this model does do is to satisfy these many disparate conditions:

1. The Great Dividing Range is shattered in its northern regions and the debris ends up in today's location in this model.

2. The Chicxulub antipodal hotspot starts out at 30ºS latitude in this model.

3. The great flood of lava at the subsurface of the western side of India is explained in this model

4. The Australian continent and its attendant parts move mostly north and somewhat east in this model.

5. The older land on the eastern side of Sumatra and the newer land on the western side of Sumatra are explained by this model.

6. The arc of Indonesian volcanoes, beginning around East Timor and moving up through the island of Sumatra AND THEN STOPPING is explained in this model.

7. The creation of the Western Ghats mountain range in India is explained and placed in the proper time line after the creation of the land tilt from west to east in this model.

8. The creation of Borneo, New Guinea, the Philippines islands and Taiwan, as well as the creation of the Philippines tectonic plate is explained in this model.

9. The creation of the Indian continent and its movement and its shape is explained in this model.

10. The creation of the Thailand and Malay peninsulas and the eastern sides of Sumatra and Java are explained in this model.

11. The creation of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the islands off the west coast of Sumatra are explained in this model.

12. The creation of the Sunda trench is explained in this model.

See the following illustrations for a graphic depiction of the journey of the Indian continent from 65 MYA until the present day:

Illustration 8-A
Illustration 8-B
Illustration 8-C
Illustration 8-D
Illustration 8-E
Illustration 8-F
Illustration 8-G
Illustration 8-H
Illustration 8-I
Illustration 8-J