{"id":20812,"date":"2026-08-21T12:05:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T06:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=20812"},"modified":"2026-08-21T14:03:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:33:36","slug":"singhbhum-craton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/singhbhum-craton\/","title":{"rendered":"Singhbhum Craton"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Singhbhum Craton Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers recently identified a 3.5-billion-year-old layered rock formation within the Singhbhum craton in eastern India that could contain some of the earliest chemical evidence of life on the planet.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Singhbhum Craton<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Singhbhum Craton, located in <\/span><b>eastern India (Jharkhand and Odisha states) between the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/chota-nagpur-plateau\/\" target=\"_blank\">Chhota Nagpur plateau<\/a> and the Eastern Ghats,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is one of the <\/span><b>oldest<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>most important cratons in the Indian Shield.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A <\/span><b>craton <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is a <\/span><b>stable continental block<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> composed of <\/span><b>ancient crystalline rocks, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">typically <\/span><b>surrounded by mobile belts.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Studying them offers a window into how processes within and on the surface of Earth operated in the past.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It represents a <\/span><b>fragment of the ancient Gondwana supercontinent<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and holds significant geological and economic importance due to its <\/span><b>rich mineral resources.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This <\/span><b>ancient part of the Earth\u2019s crust <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has been found in previous research to <\/span><b>date back to 3.5 billion years ago.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">craton\u2019s oldest <\/span><b>rock assemblage<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s are <\/span><b>largely volcanic and sedimentary rocks, also known as greenstone successions.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Greenstones <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are<\/span><b> rock assemblage<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s made up <\/span><b>mostly of sub-marine volcanic rocks <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">with <\/span><b>minor sedimentary rocks.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The geology of this area shares stark <\/span><b>similarity with <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the <\/span><b>greenstone belts <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">documented <\/span><b>in South Africa\u2019s Barberton and Nondweni areas and the Pilbara Craton in western Australia.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>All these areas experienced widespread submarine mafic <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014 meaning high in <\/span><b>magnesium oxide<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 <\/span><b>volcanic eruptions<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> between 3.5 and 3.3 billion years ago, <\/span><b>preserved as pillowed lava and komatiites.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Significance:<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They offer a clearer <\/span><b>picture of Earth\u2019s early tectonic activities during the Archaean times,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> contributing to our understanding of the planet\u2019s formative years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Singhbhum Craton\u2019s unique geological features, including its greenstone belts, provide invaluable <\/span><b>information about Earth\u2019s surface and atmospheric processes.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is crucial for hypothesising early habitable conditions and the emergence of life on Earth.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/india-news\/india-3-5-billion-year-old-rock-jharkhand-oldest-evidence-life-earth-126082000798_1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">BS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Singhbhum Craton is a vast swathe of rocky land that stretches mainly across parts of Jharkhand and Odisha, between the Chhota Nagpur plateau and the Eastern Ghats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":120357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9692],"class_list":["post-20812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-singhbhum-craton","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20812"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120340,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20812\/revisions\/120340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}