Young fossil hunter
- POSTED ON: 6 Jul, 2019
- TOTAL VIEWS: 1401 Views
- POSTED BY: Madhumitha Srinivasan
- ARTICLE POINTS: 150 Points
Aswatha Biju had a unique 11th birthday celebration last year. She spent the day collecting fossils at the Cauvery river-bed in Ariyalur, a district in Tamil Nadu (TN). It is an activity that is close to Aswatha’s heart, and she may be India’s youngest paleontologist.
Paleontology is the study of the preserved remains or impressions — known as fossils — of animals and plants that lived up to billions of years ago.
“By studying these fossils, we can learn about the environment, climate, soil composition and more of a particular region billions of years ago. It helps us understand where we came from,” explains Aswatha, a Std VII student at Sri Chaitanya School at Pallavaram, Chennai, TN.
Here’s how Aswatha’s passion for paleontology was ignited…
Aswatha has collected 74 fossil specimens so far. Her mini-museum at home consists of specimens ranging from gastropods, brachiopods, ammonites to bivalves, each, billions of years old.
Play this memory game to identify the different types of invertibrate fossil specimens: