Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad   

Jurassic Park of sorts!

T. Lalith Singh

COUNT THE YEARS: This fossil of fish dating back to 160 million years will be displayed at the Dinosarium. — Photo: K.Gajendran.

HYDERABAD: "It's as if an old boy's club is being formed here," he laughs.

If B.M. Birla Science Centre director B.G. Siddharth is amused, he has every reason to be. For these days, he is engaged in the exercise of bringing together a fish, tree trunk, some leaves and of course, a dinosaur. All hailing from the same location and frozen in a time warp dating back to the early Jurassic Age, some 160 million years ago. The Science Centre, which mounted a dinosaur skeleton five years ago on its premises, has now received a fresh batch of frozen consignment from the Geological Survey of India (GSI). "They gave us the fossil of a small fish along with a tree trunk and some leaves that were found to be 160 million year old. These were found during the GSI excavation at Yamanapally in Adilabad from where dinosaur fossil too was recovered," says Dr. Siddharth.

The exercise to have the newly acquired flora and fauna from the early Jurassic Age along with the 44-metre-long, 16-foot-high dinosaur mounted at the Dinosaurium has begun. The fish fossil measures 12 cm while the tree trunk stands about 4 feet by 3 feet.

Though experts are engaged in documenting more details about the specimen, geologists using palaeontological evidence have dated it to 160 million years, Dr. Siddharth explains. A few more fossils dating back to 80 million years too have been provided to the Science Centre by the GSI and the same will be on display soon.

For stargazers, the planetarium is working towards adding one more show to its collection on celestial happenings. Called `Worlds in Collision', it will depict how violent the universe happens to be. "The sky may appear calm and peaceful but out there, trillions of collisions are happening at regular intervals. The new show which is under production will tell the story of those collisions and what they mean to us," says Dr. Siddharth.

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