Page 24 - CTB-1 10 May

24 PIONEERING A NEW FUTURE
L-R: The museum at BSIP SEM facility at BSIP
C-14 radiocarbon dating lab at BSIP
Museum visit by foreign delegates
helped the institute in addressing the boundary evaluation issues and assessment of the more precise palaeoenvironmental and depositional settings of
the different successions of coal-bearing deposits of Permian Gondwana.
The Precambrian successions of India entomb evidence of the evolution of the lithosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. Microfossils, microbial mats, stromatolites, trace fossils, and metazoans are some personified examples of origin of macroscopic life. Stromatolites are one of the definite evidences of life in Precambrian Era.
They have been extensively documented from the Archaean and Proterozoic sedimentary
basins of India and reflect their importance in biostratigraphy. The latest Palaeoproterozoic-
Early Mesoproterozoic Chitrakut Formation
(>1600Ma) of the Vindhyan Supergroup revealed the oldest morphologically complex organic–
walled eukaryotic microfossils, one of the major contributions in the Indian context of the oldest
life on Earth. Microbial mat and trace fossils is another significant facet symbolizing the
early life. The mats are formed by the activity of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, and good indicator of palaeoecology and depositional environment during evolution of life on earth.
An initiative has been started in the field of astrobiology in order to explore the origin of life
in extreme condition and their coexistence on the other planets like Mars. BSIP’s expedition opened a new window to support science exploration, testing of new technologies and science protocols within the framework of astrobiology research.
BSIP has increased its probing capacities by developing state-of-the-art analytical facilities such as ICP-MS, IR-MS, GC-MS, XRD, and XRF to study the geochemical composition and mineralogical composition in the palaeoscientific samples and the sedimentary context in which those samples have been collected. Palaeosciences heavily depend on careful inspection of any evidences available
in the field like a detective agent, and hence apart from optical microscopes the existing SEM has been upgraded to FE-SEM, and added confocal laser microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. A new
A 4200-year-old ‘Meghalayan’ stalagmite