| Vision |
Biostratigraphy Division aims to study the fossils from the Himalayan sequences for imparting temporal framework to the evolutionary events of the orogen and for providing global perspective to the Himalayan Geology.
| Biostratigraphy and the Himalayan Sedimentary Sequence |
Fossils provide invaluable information pertaining to nature of the paleolife forms, their evolutionary trends constrained with time, past physico-chemical conditions and thus impart better understanding of both regional and global geological history of the planet Earth.
The Tethyan Zone all along the Himalaya preserves fossils of marine realm lasting for ~600 million years in almost continuous successions ranging from at least Neoproterozoic to Eocene. In contrast, the Lesser Himalayan Zone is bereft with such continuous fossil records, but contiguous fossil records of Edicaran,Lower Cambrian, Lower Permian, Late Cretaceous , Paleocene, and Eocene are quite well established. Piecemealing together all biostratigraphic informations towards constructing right order of stratigraphic superposition in the highly tectonized Lesser Himalayan fold-thrust belt and their correlations are some of the main objectives of the Biostratigraphy Division. These basic informations while are essentially required for solving the problems of structural complexities, palinspastic reconstructions and evolution of the Himalayan Orogen, the paleontological database is also immensely helpful for global understanding on the evolution of life and for ascertaining the migratory routes and the paleobiogeographic connections etc.
In nutshell, fossil content of the sedimentary sequences is the most potential proxy of the cumulative changes in geophysical parameters owing to basinal and regional/global developments. This relationship is exploited in unraveling the geological past of the package in chronological order. Insights gained through palaeontological research has far reaching impact that goes far beyond the ambit of the Himalayan Geology; be it related to organic evolution or role of the Himalayan tectonics in shaping present day fauna and flora through changes induced in global climatic scenario.