[1] Scientific studies indicate that the basalt of the St. Mary's Islands was formed by sub-aerial subvolcanic activity, because at that time Madagascar was attached to India.

With the discovery of the sea route to India in 1498, Vasco da Gama landed at St Mary's Islands, at the end of the voyage from the Kingdom of Portugal.

Da Gama fixed a cross and named one of these islands O Padrão de Santa Maria in Portuguese, as a dedication to St Mary, the virgin-mother of Jesus Christ, before proceeding to Calicut (Kozhikode) in the Malabar region, the present-day Kerala.

[8][10] The Deccan Traps that formed during Cretaceous–Eocene time about 60 million years ago emerged from the vast deluge of hot molten basaltic lava in the western part of India which is now seen as flat topped hills and step like terraces.

[1] Scientific studies carried out at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay on the petrology, palaeomagnetism and volcanics of the rocks of the island has brought out the following facts.

[11] An analysis of palaeomagnetic data from India and Madagascar hypothesizes a new India–Madagascar fit related to the Late Cretaceous, directly prior to and during the early phase of Madagascar–India separation.

The strength of this inference is based on the approach that the Felsic volcanics (rhyolites and Rhyodacites) of the St. Mary's Islands (SMI), Southern India, were originally interpreted as a distant outlier of the 66 Ma Deccan volcanic province of west–central India, comprising dominantly flood basalts.

Since the technique used was a simple use of an average of five out of six widely varying dates and arbitrary data selectivity chosen, the results were not considered reliable.

The K–Ar (potassium-argon dating) technique adopted for the southern Indian Precambrian terrain, intruded by numerous mafic–doleritic dyke swarms, the age from Proterozoic to the latest Cretaceous is reported as 69–66 Ma (Deccan-related).

[13] Another scientific study on the biogeographic and tectonic history of India reported that:[14] "Although real breaks among the lands were indicated by the physical data, faunal links were maintained by agile animals that were able to surmount minor marine barriers.

Apart from the Islands, Malpe too has tourist attractions such as the Vadabhandeshwara Temple and an image of Balarama consecrated by the saint Madhvacharya, the founder of the Dvaita school of thought.

Or regular ferry service ply the 6 km distance from the Malpe fishing harbour (which has a ship building yard also) to the islands.

Mumbai, Kochi, Kazhakoottam, Kanjiramattom, Thrippunithura, and Muthalamada are linked to Malpe, by the West Coast Railway.