Raipur: In an eye catching development, state government has announced its plans to develop a ‘Marine Fossil Park’ at Asia’s oldest marine fossil site discovered recently on the banks of Hasdeo river.
According to the forest department, state government has allocated funds for the proposed park which will be setup in the township area of Hasdeo river in Aamakherwa of Manendragarh, covering an area of around 1 kilometer.
This comes after the remarkable discovery of 280-million-year old marine fossils on the banks of Hasdeo river in Chhattisgarh’s Manendragarh-Chirimiri-Bharatpur (MCB) district, around 300km from state’s capital Raipur.
The discovery has elated the officials who are now hoping for a significant turnout of tourists and researchers in the said locality following completion of the proposed ‘Marine Fossil Park’.
Significantly, the incumbent state government has shown keen interest and is already collecting detailed information related to fossils with an aim to develop the said locality as a major scientific and tourist destination.
“The state government is preparing to develop it as a Marine Fossils Park which is going to be the pride of Asia let alone Chhattisgarh,” said an official.
Expressing his delight over the discovery, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said that finding 280-million-old marine fossil in Manendragarh is a matter of pride for Chhattisgarh and the state government is full committed to preserving and developing its natural heritage.
The CM further asserted that the said park will not only become a center of scientific research but will also create new employment opportunities related to tourism.
After being developed as a Marine Fossil Park, the area will open to tourists and scientists as a bio-diversity heritage site. Tourist coming here will be able to see and understand the story of the origin and evolution of organisms millions of years old. The Chhattisgarh government is giving special importance to this project. Teams of Geological Survey of India, Kolkata and Birbal Sahni Institute Lucknow have studied the area and assessed its possibilities, he added.
Meanwhile terming it a significant discovery, Dr Vinay Kumar Pandey, Nodal Officer of the Department of Archaeology, said that this would be the largest fossils in Asia. Scientific archaeologists from the country and abroad will come here to study. Carbon dating revealed that it is 280 million years old. It was first discovered by Dr SK Ghosh in 1954. Then the team of ESI and Lucknow Birbal continuously surveyed it.
According to scientists, 280 million years ago, there was a glacier at the place of the present Hasdeo river that later got absorbed in the sea in the form of a thin strip called ‘Stathis’ through which marine organisms entered the present Hasdeo river of Manendragarh. They gradually became extinct but their fossils can still be seen at the said site. In the year 2015, scientists of Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleo Sciences, Lucknow also confirmed it.
The remains of fossils provide evidence that millions of years ago there was a sea in this area, which later disappeared due to natural changes and the remains of these organisms got buried in the stones and got preserved as fossils. This is an important discovery that provides us information about the history and change of the earth.
Following the discovery of the marine fossils the area has indeed became an important cultural and scientific heritage, which is expected to help unravel the ancient history of the planet earth. Notably, the area has been preserved as a National Geological Monument by the Geological Survey of India (GSI) since 1982.
