Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The India or Indian Plate is a tectonic plate that was originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwanaland from which it split off, eventually becoming a major plate. About 50 to 55 million years ago, it fused with the adjacent Australian Plate. It is today part of the major Indo-Australian Plate, and includes the subcontinent of India and a portion of the basin under the Indian Ocean. In the late Cretaceous Period about 90 million years ago, subsequent to the splitting off from Gondwanaland of conjoined Madagascar and India, the India Plate split from Madagascar. It began moving north, at about 20 cm/yr (8 in/yr) , and began colliding with Asia between 50 and 55 million years ago, in the Eocene epoch of the Cenozoic Era.