The western continental margin of India can be classed as a divergent or passive margin. The western continental shelf is an extensive carbonate bank (Bombay offshore basin) passing into clastic sediments to the north and south. Three craton-margin embayed basins, Kutch, Cambay, and Narmada, in the northern part of the shelf, are filled with predominantly clastic sediments. These basins occupy grabens bounded by faults diverging seaward. The grabens were formed by three rift systems along major Precambrian tectonic trends. The rifting developed sequentially from north to south around the Saurashtra horst. Kutch basin was formed in the Early Jurassic, followed by Cambay basin in Early Cretaceous and Narmada basin in Late Cretaceous. It appears that these rifting events occ rred at successive stages during the northward migration of the Indian plate after its break from Gondwanaland in Late Triassic or Early Jurassic. It is inferred that these rift basins opened up successively as a result of the drift of the Indian craton anticlockwise.

Bombay offshore and Cambay are two major oil producing basins in the western margin. These basins are characterized by high geothermal gradients attributed to the shallowness of the mantle in this region.

Oil has not been found in Kutch basin. This is mainly a Mesozoic onshore basin. The basin depocenter shifted offshore in the northwestern part of the continental shelf where the shelf is wider. The onshore-offshore prospects of this basin are discussed considering global tectonics and basin history.

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