3. The Chotanagpur Plateau

The Chotanagpur Plateau sprawls over parts of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and northeastern part of Andhra Pradesh. This plateau has a series of the meso and micro plateaux (Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Singhbhum, Dhanbad, Palamu, Santhal, Parganas and Purulia districts of West Bengal). It is composed of Archaean granite and gneiss rocks with patches of Dharwar (mica-schists), the Damuda series of the Gondwana Period, and the lava flow of the Cretaceous Period.

Moreover, the Chhotanagpur Plateau consists of plateaux at different levels of elevation, the highest general elevation of about 1100 m in the mid-western part is known as pat lands. The rivers which drain the Chhotanagpur Plateau are Barakar, Damodar, Subarnarekha, and Koels. These rivers have carved out deep gorges, rapids, cataracts, and waterfalls in the plateau region.