Bangladesh Geosciences and Resources Potential

Khalil R. Chowdhury, Md. Sakawat Hossain, Md. Sharif Hossain Khan

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000510041
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze fisiche
• Subtopic: Geologia e scienze della terra

This book focuses on the potential natural resources of Bangladesh from Precambrian to recent times and their detailed geological background. Natural resources and their management are important for the sustainable economic development of a country. Focusing on the geological setting of the Bengal Basin, Bangladesh Geosciences and Resources Potential introduces and comprehensively describes the depositional environments, status and prospects of the potential natural resources of Bangladesh. Individual chapters outline the potential resources comprising a wide range of deposit types across the country. A selective overview of these natural resources—metallic minerals, coal, limestone, hydrocarbon, peat, placer deposits, surface, groundwater and so forth—is provided with relevant references. The book gives a synthesis of the issues in the mineral, hydrocarbon and water resource sectors from a resource-economic perspective.

FEATURES

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• Provides a geoscientific knowledge of the potential natural resources with relevant maps, figures and tables pertaining to the Bangladesh region

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• Explains the resource-economic context, geomorphology and sustainable land use and the effects of climate change on both surface water and groundwater resources

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• Discusses resource potentials based on systematic geological stages

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• Presents the resources of renewable energy and discusses how to increase their use and effectiveness

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• Reinforces basic geological processes and outcomes with an understanding of resource geology and constraints on natural resource management

This book is aimed at researchers, graduate students and professionals in geology, energy and mineral resources, hydrogeology, water resources engineering, the environmental sciences and resource exploration and planning.

1Introduction to Bangladesh Geosciences and Resources Potential

Khalil R. Chowdhury, Md. Sakawat Hossain and Md. Sharif Hossain Khan

DOI: 10.1201/9781003080817-1

Contents

1. 1.1Bangladesh and the Bengal Basin
2. 1.2Tectonic Setting, Geological Provinces, and Stratigraphy
3. 1.2.1Geotectonic Province 1: Western Flank of the Bengal Basin
4. 1.2.2Geotectonic Province 2: The Foredeep Basin
5. 1.2.3Geotectonic Province 3: The Folded Flank
6. 1.2.4The Bay of Bengal
7. 1.3Geological and Tectonic Maps
8. 1.4The Exploration History of Natural Resources
9. 1.4.1Hydrocarbon
10. 1.4.2Limestone
11. 1.4.3Coal
12. 1.4.4Peat
13. 1.4.5Beach Sand
14. 1.4.6Water
15. 1.4.7The Blue Economy
16. 1.4.8Renewable Energy
17. 1.5Unconventional Energy Resources
18. 1.6Overview of the Book
19. 1.7Scope of the Book
20. References

1.1 Bangladesh and the Bengal Basin

The People’s Republic of Bangladesh is situated in the eastern part of the South Asian sub-continent. It is bounded to the west and north by the Indian states of West Bengal and Meghalaya, to the east by the Indian states of Assam and Tripura and the Rakhine state of Myanmar, and to the south by the Bay of Bengal (Figure 1.1). It has a land border of about 2,400 km, of which 92% is shared with India and about 8% with Myanmar. Bangladesh comprises eight administrative divisions (Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka, Khulna, Mymensingh, Rajshahi, Rangpur, and Sylhet), with 64 districts. From northwest to southeast, it extends for some 780 km from 26°N to 20°N, with the Tropic of Cancer (23°30′N) dividing the country into a subtropical central and north, and a tropical south.

Figure 1.1Simplified tectonic map of the Bengal Basin and its surroundings

Source: Modified after Hossain et al. (2019) and Hossain et al. (2020b).

Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries of the world, lies at the confluence of three great rivers of the world – the Brahmaputra-Jamuna, the Ganges-Padma, and the Meghna – which converge to form the largest delta in the world, and mark seasonal variations of surface water. Major components of this surface water system are: (1) streams and rivers; (2) haors, baors and beels; (3) estuary and coastal channels; and (4) canals, ponds and tanks (Chowdhury and Bhuiya, 1990). These major rivers and their innumerable distributaries deposited sediments in the Quaternary covering about three-quarters of the land. Bangladesh may be broadly classified into three physiographic divisions: (1) floodplains; (2) terraces; and (3) hills. In the Recent time the physiography and the drainage pattern of this vast alluvial land have experienced considerable alterations due to neo-tectonics (Bakr, 1977).

Tectonically, Bangladesh lies in a critical position at the junction of three interacting plates (i.e. the Indian, Burmese, and Eurasian plates; Figure 1.1) at the northeastern edge of the Bay of Bengal. Geographically, although Bangladesh constitutes a major portion of the Bengal Basin, the basin also covers parts of the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, and Mizoram (Figure 1.1). Hence, the geology of Bangladesh is an integral part of the geology of the Bengal Basin. The geological development of Bangladesh is linked to the collision of the Indian Plate with the Eurasian Plate to the north and the Burmese Plate to the east, building the Himalayan Orogen and the Indo-Burman Orogen in the north and east, respectively (Alam, 1989; Wang et al., 2014; Steckler et al., 2016; Hossain et al., 2019; Hossain et al., 2020b). The geological environments of the Bangladesh part of the Bengal Basin are quite diverse and are represented in areas ranging from shallow depth Precambrian Basement rocks, to Eocene Hinge Zone, to Tertiary sedimentary basins and mountain ranges and Quaternary surficial deposits. The potential natural resources of Bangladesh comprise a wide range of deposit types scattered across the country, within an area of 147,610 km². The natural resources of these diverse regions include metallic minerals, coal, limestone, hydrocarbon, peat, placer deposits, surface and groundwater, and a spectrum of other potential resources in the Bay of Bengal.

Natural resources and their management are most important for the sustainable economic development of a country. The export-driven economic growth of Bangladesh in recent years has been powered by an incessant supply of energy and mineral resources to its production and service sectors, and, therefore, the continued rise of its gross domestic product (GDP) year-on-year. To sustain this high GDP growth, the primary energy and mineral resources of the country need to be taken into consideration. If these natural resources are exploited properly with modern methods, while protecting the natural surface environment, this would make the country prosperous. Therefore, briefly introducing the geological setting of Bangladesh, the first and primary purpose of this edited book is to delineate and comprehensively describe the geology of the potential natural resources, their current status, and future prospects.

1.2 Tectonic Setting, Geological Provinces, and Stratigraphy

Tectonically, the Bengal Basin is enclosed by the cratonic passive margin of the Indian Plate to the west, the active Indo-Eurasian collisional margin to the north, and the active Indo-Burmese oblique subduction margin to the east, respectively (see Figure 1.1) (Hossain et al., 2019; Hossain et al., 2020b; Yang et al., 2020). This continues to the south as the Bengal Fan to the Bay of Bengal. Tectonically, the basin has been divided into three geotectonic provinces: (1) Geotectonic Province 1 – the Stable Shelf to the northwest; (2) Geotectonic Province 2 – the Foredeep Basin to the centre; and (3) Geotectonic Province 3 – the Folded Flank to the east (Bakhtine, 1966; Reimann, 1993; Hossain et al., 2019; Hossain et al., 2020a; Hossain et al., 2020b), though Province 3 is actually the eastern continuation of Province 2, which has been evolving as an accretionary wedge due to eastward subduction and forming the Chittagong Tripura Fold Belt (CTFB) (Hossain et al., 2020b). These provinces and their tectonic elements are briefly discussed here, starting from the geologically oldest province (Province 1) to the youngest province (Province 3).

1.2.1 GEOTECTONIC PROVINCE 1: WESTERN FLANK OF THE BENGAL BASIN

This is the westernmost and oldest geotectonic province of the Bengal Basin formed during the rifting of the Gondwana through extensional tectonics and a host complex graben system with tilted and/or downthrown blocks (Hossain et al., 2019; Hossain et al., 2020b). It is characterised by large negative anomalies (0 to140 mGal), mostly related to the basement structural features, namely, graben and half-graben structures, where Gondwana coal/sediments have been deposited (Khan and Rahman, 1992). Although a number of natural resources have been discovered, this stable platform area of the Bengal Basin, which is also known as the Bogra Petroleum System, remains to be effectively explored for natural resources, including hydrocarbon.

Four tectonic elements/blocks have been identified based on the geophysical and borehole data: (1) the Himalayan Foredeep; (2) the Dinajpur Shelf; (3) the Rangpur Saddle or Platform Flank; and (4) the Bogra Shelf.

• The Himalayan Foredeep: This tectonic unit is marked by high negative Bouguer gravity anomaly ranging from -110 mGal in the south to -150 mGal in the north, which suggests noticeable thickening of basinal strata northward into the Siwalik foreland basin of the northeastern Himalaya (Rabbani et al., 2000; Uddin and Lundberg, 2004). In this unit, the Neogene clastic sediments attain a thickness of 3–4.5 km (Rabbani et al., 2000). At its northern edge, clear evidence of an active deformation zone has been found, as indicated by active faulting, uplift and surface rupture, and frequent seismicity (Hossain et al., 2020b).
• The Dinajpur Shelf: This is also known as the Dinajpur Slope or Northern Foreland Shelf of the Bengal Basin, and is characterised by an almost E-W trending linear Bougue...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Foreword
• Preface
• Editors
• List of Contributors
• 1 Introduction to Bangladesh Geosciences and Resources Potential
• 2 Precambrian Basement Rock of Bangladesh and Its Metallic Minerals
• 3 Gondwana Deposits of the Bengal Basin (Bangladesh) and Coal Potential
• 4 Limestone Deposits of Bangladesh and Their Potential
• 5 Petroleum System of Bangladesh and Its Hydrocarbon Reserves and Resources
• 6 Hydrocarbon Resource Potentials of Bangladesh
• 7 Peat Resources in Bangladesh and Challenges for Their Development
• 8 Placer Deposits of Bangladesh and Their Potential Commercialisation
• 9 Resource Potentials of the Marine Areas of Bangladesh
• 10 Geomorphology of Bangladesh and Potential Land Use
• 11 Groundwater Resources, Challenges and Governance in the Bengal Basin, Bangladesh
• 12 River-Borne Sediments of Bangladesh and Their Economic Importance
• 13 The Surface Water System, Flood and Water Resources Management of Bangladesh
• 14 Global Climate Change and Its Effects on the Water Resources of Bangladesh
• 15 Renewable Energy and Its Prospects in Bangladesh
• Index