Incomparable Songs Of Life

While touring the big desert of Kutch in Feb. 1990, Manjula Savla and her friends came to the village of Tuga.  Village's government school's teacher Ismilebhai Sama got the best teachers' award in 1995.  He showed the team an ammonite' fossil.  They also found such fossils during their journey.  In 1992, she went to Kutch along with the friend. They went to the hill of Kiro that is a dead volcano.  They found a very rare fossil from region.  Few years' back on the show called 'Surabhi' that was telecast on Doordarshan, they showed the tribal people of Gujrat's Panchmahal district, worshiping something just like a shape of a coconut.  Actually it was it was the fossil of the eggs of Dinosaur.

After the death of any living creature or thing, when their remains stays in rocks in the form of stones are called fossil.  The science that studies these fossils is called Palaeontogy.  This fossils can be of any kind of green, trees, of birds and can be as ancient as thousand to million to billion years.

Fossils are of different types.  Sometime, a whole body of living can be turned into fossil like Siberian Mammoth's fossils found in large icy Siberian grounds.  This indicated that million years ago, there must be large land of grass and huge animals had their habits here.

In the second type of fossils, the remains of living can be stucked in between two rocks or any two layers.  Their body could be rotten but their skeleton or the veins of leaves left their mark on rocks.  Sometimes in the trees' glue or the liquid, the fossils of bacteria can be found.

Millions years ago, due to some natural calamity, the living must be buried between the two layers of earth or between two rocks.  Great force and heat brings changes to these remains.  In many cases, the complex chemicals turns into simple chemicals and some elements turns into carbohydrates.  The atoms of calcium, carbonate and sand enter the cells of these remains and turn them into crystal like things.  If water enters in this remains, then Kelsaite, Dolomite, or Parities enters the cells of this remains which turns them into rocky like condition.  This chemical reaction is called Petrifaction.

Greece's famous historian Hirodate's introduced fossil to the world. In 450 BC he said that fossils are the remains of the livings that live lived on earth thousands years ago.  European Naturologist M. Sonret is considered to be the father of Palaeontogy, of modern times.  He explained fossil in 1781.  During this time, England's William Smith was working as a surveyor of channels and railway lines.  During his work time, in the diggings, he found many fossils and he studied them well and created the first archaeological map in 1815.

Fossils found in different regions of earth.  They also developed the way of deciding the age of fossils.  From the beginnings of life on earth, till this day, the time is divided into 3 main eras;
1) Paleozoic,
2) Mesozoic era and
3) Cenozoic era

To decide the age of any fossil, they use the theory of 'C-14'.

Through this science, we can learn things like the life of pre-ancient time, the changes that came into the livings and the end of dinosaurs.

In India, different types of fossils are found in regions like Kutch's Panchamahal, Rajasthan's desert, in the mountain regions of Himalayan like Cathpath, Sang-la, Parang-la, in south's Pondicheri's Thiruvakarai, etc. They teach palaecontogy in Pune's Deacon University and in Jodhpur University.

Jodhpur University's Pro. Bardha studied the fossils of sea creature found in Kutch.  According to him, these fossils are as ancient as 13 to 15 billion years.  These are fund in the form of limestones, sand rocks and shell rocks.

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