With 40 places on the UNESCO World Heritage List, India’s cultural sites – some of them of archaeological significance – are globally recognised at the same time as plans to preserve them are underway. Most of these sites have a good time human historical past, but what of the landscapes towards which these chapters have performed out? What of India’s geodiversity and geoheritage?
Landscapes throughout the Indian subcontinent bear signatures of many geological occasions, from the evolution of life to the cycles of mass extinction preserved in the fossil data. These occasions embrace meteorite impacts, volcanic eruptions that laid down the Deccan Traps, the collision of continents that birthed the Himalaya, Lakshadweep’s coral atolls, the start of rivers and how they formed fertile river valleys, large deltas, and the world’s largest mangrove forests.
The ensuing landscapes formed the rise and fall of civilisations and empires; they affect the organisation of wealth and political energy in fashionable societies. This is why our geodiversity and geoheritage are value remembering, and preserving.
What is geoheritage?
Geodiversity is the variability of rocks, fossils, minerals, and pure processes that form our landscapes whereas geoheritage refers to sites that provide insights into the evolution of the earth and can be utilized for analysis, reference, and consciousness. The Geological Survey of India has recognised a quantity of geoheritage sites across the nation, however there are extra that deserve the popularity but haven’t.
To draw the eye of native governments, industries, and the general public to potential sites, the Society of Earth Scientists (SES), a bunch of impartial researchers bridging the hole between earth science and society, anchored a nationwide programme for International Geodiversity Day in October 2022, adopted by three area workshops to search for potential sites throughout India.
The first workshop was about dinosaur fossils in Bagh, Madhya Pradesh, and the second in the Kachchh area of Gujarat centered on Jurassic life and tectonic options, and highlighted what every state has to supply for tourism, science, and training.
For the third workshop, earlier this March, a bunch of area geologists, geology professors, archaeologists, and mining trade representatives gathered to scout a fossil park at Jhamarkotra and the metallurgical stays at Zawar, round 20 km southeast of Udaipur, Rajasthan.
What is the importance of Jhamarkotra?
A brief, dusty climb from the Jhameshwar Mahadev pond, with no wall, fence or signboard, lies a stromatolite fossil park: it hosts stromatolites relationship again 1.8 billion years, exhibiting a range of textures and sizes.
A stromatolite is a layered sedimentary rock created by microorganisms. As such, stromatolite fossils protect data of cyanobacteria, generally referred to as blue-green algae – the earliest life on the planet. These organisms developed the flexibility to photosynthesise and make their very own meals. By doing so, they pumped massive portions of oxygen into the ambiance of primaeval earth, permitting most different life to evolve and flourish.
Stromatolites are generally referred to as ‘crocodile-skin rock’ attributable to their uncommon textures. In this case, the feel was the end result of the carbonate matrix eroding away extra simply than the phosphate-rich minerals.
| Photo Credit:
Devayani Khare
Cyanobacteria stay in shallow waters; their quest for daylight, for photosynthesis, precipitated them to lure sediments and deposit them as lens-like layers. The ensuing stromatolites allowed their colonies to broaden and flourish – nearly like microbial reefs.
Jhamarkotra’s fossils are phosphate-rich as a result of the trapped sediments have been primarily phosphate minerals. These fossils are half of the rationale why the area is a thriving mining hub in the present day: the phosphate is mined to be used as agricultural fertilisers. But as mining operations in the area have expanded, the trade has offered a double-edged sword: it could actually establish and protect the fossils or it could actually harm or destroy these data of our geological previous.
For now, native our bodies have cemented these specimens collectively, in the hopes of preserving them for scientific worth and posterity. With solely the villagers and thorny acacias as custodians, quite a bit of work will probably be wanted to boost consciousness and protect these stromatolites.
What is at Zawar?
Another fascinating geoheritage website lies some 40 km south of Udaipur: Zawar, the world’s oldest identified zinc-smelting website. It is of archaeological and metallurgic significance.
The panorama round Zawar bears quite a few traces of zinc mining and smelting operations in historical occasions, together with open stopes, trenches, chambers, galleries, shafts, and open-pit mines. The discovery right here of earthen retorts – brinjal-shaped, long-necked vessels – is especially vital: their presence right here suggests Zawar had a novel zinc-smelting legacy.
Before the appearance of excessive strain expertise, extracting zinc was a substantial problem. Zinc has low boiling and melting factors, so heating it kinds a vapour, which readily oxidises in contact with the ambiance. However, the folks of Zawar extracted zinc utilizing a distillation course of that required the use of a retort and an exterior condenser.
This is why, of all steel extraction methods, the one employed to acquire zinc represents the peak of metallurgical prowess. Zawar’s zinc-smelting operations date again 2,000 years. In 1988, the American Society of Metals acknowledged it to be the earliest zinc-smelting website in the archaeological file. Written data additionally hint the use of zinc in historical medication and in mediaeval weapons of struggle. The folks in the area additionally traded it with their counterparts in China and Japan.
So the massive query in the present day is: Can we protect Jhamarkotra and Zawar as geoheritage sites?
How can we defend these sites?
Apart from its World Heritage listing, UNESCO additionally has standards for ‘Global Geoparks’: sites with geological heritage of worldwide worth. Both Jhamarkotra and Zawar could qualify in the event that they meet just a few different circumstances as properly.
To this finish, in the approaching weeks, contributors from the three SES area workshops. plus geologists, the nationwide tourism board, and trade representatives will try and draft a roadmap to have these places accredited as geoheritage sites. The roadmap will define the geological, cultural, and pure parts to be included in every geopark, establish related stakeholders, and chalk a administration plan.
The SES additionally hopes to boost consciousness about India’s wealthy geoheritage by way of digital and offline campaigns.
When we take delight in our nation’s wealthy and diversified heritage, allow us to additionally embrace landscapes that inform of its wealthy and diversified geological historical past.
Devayani Khare is a geoscience communicator who runs the Geosophy e-newsletter (www.devayanikh.com/geosophyexcerpts), and additionally works as a communications guide in the sector of environmental advocacy.
