Dr Ritesh Arya urges to frame Geo-heritage laws to preserve its valuable wealth
Dr Ritesh Arya, a renowned Geologist urged the government of Himachal Pradesh to frame Geo-heritage law so that the precious fossil wealth from the Himalayas which throws significant light on the evolution of angiosperms, mammals and Himalayas can be preserved and information passed to the future generation. He said this during ‘Samvad’ organized by the Himachal Academy of Arts, Culture and Language held on July 15. He also highlighted the need for establishing an university or Institute of Earth Sciences, water and Climate change to study the impact of climate change on water resources so that their long term impact on dams could be understood and also promotion of geoheritage for Geotourism.
He also revealed that during a lecture about Kasauli formation fascinated him to be a geologist. In 1864 Medlicott in 1864 came to Kasauli and collected ill preserved fossil leaves which were later identified as palm leaves by botanist O Fiestmantel. but Kasauli Formation was generally considered to be unfossiliferous.
He wanted to locate the place from where Mediclot had collected fossils. Kasauli was not the same now. Roads were not made of rock but of Sandstone , all the retaining walls and the buildings and the churches even my own house was made of sandstone which was 20 million years old rock. It took me months to actually find the first fossil from Kasauli but by the time he completed his graduation he had large collection of fossils of leaves, flowers, buds, fruits, roots stem logs of tree first mammal identified as Rhinocerous, insect wing, gastropods bivalves, etc from Kasauli to get PhD degree.
He started identify these in collaboration with the Birbal Sahni Institute of paleobotany Lucknow. Notably, the leaves were identified the most important thing was none of the leaves of Combretum, Clinogene Garcinia, Gluta Sygigium are today nowhere found in the Himalayas but were found in Andaman Nicobar island, and Indonesia and Malaysia. This clearly meant that Kasauli sediments were deposited near the equator and the Himalayas were not born till 20 million years ago. The Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal were nonexistent and Tethys sea which was separating India and China
Dr Arya discovered diverse fossil assemblage from Kasauli and surrounding areas where he also found fossils of whale, shark oysters etc from Dharampur Subathu and Garkhal area. H regretted that due to lack of any museum facility all these specimens were just resting in the boxes in the buildings. He had displayed some fossils in Chandigarh museum. But his quest to preserve fossil where these were found have made him feel to protect this prestigious geological heritage in the geoparks so that the fossils can be preserved. This invaluable information is lost due to negligence. The four- lane of Parwanooand Solan road have already taken toll on the fossil trees and 100s of fossil trees have been lost.
Dr Ritesh Arya urges to frame Geo-heritage laws to preserve its valuable wealth
Arya is of the opinion that the development should take place but if the fossils are found they should be preserved there and then and if not then the fossils should be collected and preserved in the museum. Fossils are sold at throw away prices in Spiti where fossils of ammonites, corals etc have been found. EOM
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