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The high plateau where the Western and Eastern Ghats meet — built of some of the oldest deep-crustal rock in India.

The Nilgiris rise abruptly as a granulite massif of charnockite and gneiss, rock that crystallised deep in the crust some 2.5 billion years ago and was later lifted to over 2,600 m at Doddabetta. Steep escarpments on every side make the plateau feel like an island in the sky.

Geographically they are the knot where the Western and Eastern Ghats join, and their isolation has produced a distinctive montane flora and the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, India’s first.

Sources

• Geological Survey of India
• UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme

A short reference note: this summary draws on third-party sources such as the Geological Survey of India and Wikipedia. In time I plan to give every geological feature its own learning-oriented write-up — with custom diagrams, graphs, and study pointers — as I’ve already done for the 11 locations that have an Instagram reel.