South Andaman Islands
摘要
This chapter represents the physiographic settings of the South Andaman districtSouth Andaman district. The Andaman group of islands includes over 553 islands which are distributed between the Bay of BengalBay of Bengal and the Andaman SeaAndaman Sea in the northern Indian OceanNorthern Indian Ocean. They are separated into 3 administrative districts under North Andaman, Middle AndamanMiddle Andaman district, and South Andaman, extending from 13° North Latitude to 10° North Latitude in the maritime region. Little Andaman island is separated from the South Andaman mainland group by the wide water body named as Duncan Passage. The reefal limestonesReefal limestones with sandy shell limestonesShell limestones and white claystones of the Archipelago groupArchipelago group and the Pleistocene limestones of the island interior sections are the major sites of karstic landforms found in the South Andaman districtSouth Andaman district. The tropical maritime climateTropical maritime climate, dense evergreen forests, high amount of rainfall (> 3000 mm/yr), presence of jointed, fractured and thicker limestones, and bio-encrustationBio-encrustation surfaces of the shore platforms provided ideal conditions for the active karstification process in the region. The island interior parts and the coastal fringe islands are explored in South Andaman for assessing the karst featuresKarst features, speleogenesisSpeleogenesis, limestone dissolutionLimestone dissolution processes and types of karstic landforms in the study. The chapter also demonstrates how far the pseudokarstic features were affected by various marine processes and the events of seismo-tectonics in the group of islands.