Which among the following is an important mineral of Pegu Yoma region of Myanmar ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, Mineral oil. The Pegu Yoma (Bago Yoma) is the low, forested range that runs down the middle of Myanmar between the Irrawaddy valley on the west and the Sittaung valley on the east. Geologically it is not a hard-rock massif but a young Tertiary sedimentary structure — an anticlinal ridge thrown up within the great sediment-filled basin of central Myanmar — and structures of that kind trap hydrocarbons, not metallic ores. That is why the region and the basin flanking it are Myanmar's oil country. Yenangyaung, on the Irrawaddy in the Magway Region, is the classic field: its name means 'stream of stinking water' after the seepages worked there long before modern drilling, and the tract around it produces most of Myanmar's oil and natural gas. Note the qualification a careful reader should make: the producing wells sit in the basin on the flanks of the Pegu Yoma rather than along its crest, so 'mineral oil of the Pegu Yoma region' is a regional description, which is how the standard geography textbooks use it and how this question intends it.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Tin belongs to a different geological province altogether. It is worked from granite-associated deposits in the far south of Myanmar, the narrow Tanintharyi (Tenasserim) strip that forms the northern end of the South-East Asian tin belt running down the Malay Peninsula — the belt whose most famous field is the Kinta Valley of Malaysia, which UPPSC itself set as a question in 2020. Nothing about a Tertiary sedimentary ridge in the central lowland produces tin.  (b) Myanmar's silver comes from the Bawdwin mine, a polymetallic deposit near Lashio in Namtu Township of northern SHAN STATE, which yields silver, lead, zinc, copper and other metals. That is on the Shan Plateau in the north-east of the country, several hundred kilometres from the Pegu Yoma and in a completely different rock province.  (d) Myanmar's large copper workings are the Monywa group — Letpadaung, Sabetaung and their neighbours in Salingyi Township of the SAGAING Region, on the Chindwin river in the north-west. Monywa itself lies about 136 km north-west of Mandalay on the east bank of the Chindwin. Again, a hard-rock deposit far from the Pegu Yoma.

Concept: Myanmar's mineral geography sorts itself neatly by structure, and that is far easier to hold than a list of mine names. Running north–south, the country has four belts. In the west, the Arakan (Rakhine) Yoma is the folded arc that continues the Indo-Burman ranges. In the centre lies a deep Tertiary sedimentary basin drained by the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin, with the Pegu Yoma rising inside it as a low anticlinal ridge — this is the petroleum and natural-gas province. To the east the ground steps up onto the Shan Plateau, an old crystalline and limestone block carrying the metallic ores: silver, lead, zinc, and the country's famous rubies and jade to the north of it. And in the far south the narrow Tanintharyi strip carries the tin and tungsten of the South-East Asian tin belt. Match the mineral to the belt and questions like this answer themselves.

State PCS 2022 Q42 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2022 Q42 — Geography PYQ with Answer