Bengal Fan

The Bengal Fan, also known as the Ganges Fan, is the largest submarine fan on Earth. The fan is about 3,000 km (1,900 mi) long, 1,430 km (890 mi) wide. It has a maximum thickness of 16.5 km (10.3 mi). The fan was formed by the erosion of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. This happened because of the collision between the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. Most of the sediment in the fan comes from the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers which supply the Lower Meghna delta in Bangladesh and the Hoogly delta in India. The oldest sediments gotten from the Bengal fan are from Early Miocene age.

The fan was first discovered by bathymetric survey in the sixties by Bruce C. Heezen and Marie Tharp which identified the abyssal cone and canyon structures. It was named by Joseph Curray and David Moore in 1968.

References

Category:Geography of Bangladesh
Category:Landforms of India