4/5 Praveen G. 6 years ago on Google
Mandla
Plant
Fossils
National
Park
is
situated
in
Mandla
district
of
Madhya
Pradesh
in
India.This
national
park
has
plants
in
fossil
form
that
existed
in
India
anywhere
between
40
million
and
150
million
years
ago
spread
over
seven
villages
of
Mandla
District
(Ghuguwa,
Umaria,
Deorakhurd,
Barbaspur,
Chanti-hills,
Chargaon
and
Deori
Kohani).
The
Mandla
Plant
Fossils
National
Park
is
an
area
that
spreads
over
274,100
square
metres.
Such
fossils
are
found
in
three
other
villages
of
the
district
also,
but
they
lie
outside
the
national
park.
The
Birbal
Sahni
Institute
of
Palaeobotany,
Lucknow,
has
done
some
work
on
the
plant
fossils
of
Mandla,
though
the
study
is
yet
in
a
preliminary
stage.
In
Ghuguwa
and
Umaria
the
standing,
petrified
trunks
of
trees
have
been
identified
as
Gymnosperms
and
Angiosperms-
Monocotyledons
and
palms.
There
are
certain
Bryophytes
also.
There
is
some
question
about
whether
the
fossils
are
from
the
late
Jurassic
or
the
early
and
mid
Cretaceous
age.
This
is
because
when
the
breakup
of
the
single
land
mass,
Pangaea
occurred,
it
was
split
by
the
continental
drift
into
Laurasia
and
Gondwana
somewhere
between
the
Jurassic
and
Cretaceous
ages.
India
formed
a
part
of
Gondwana.
Depending
on
the
age
in
which
the
split
occurred,
the
fossils
are
either
Jurassic
or
Cretaceous.
Interspersed
with
the
plant
fossils
are
to
be
found
the
fossils
of
molluscs.
One
theory
is
that
the
area
in
which
the
fossils
are
located,
i.e.,
the
Narmada
Valley
near
Mandla,
was
actually
a
deep
inundation
of
the
sea
into
peninsular
India
until
the
Post-
Cambrian
Tertiary
age,
about
40
million
years
ago.
This
means
that
Narmada
was
a
very
short
river
which
terminated
in
the
inland
sea
above
Mandla,
and
that
the
recession
of
the
sea
caused
geological
disturbances,
which
created
the
present
rift
valley
through
which
the
Narmada
River
and
Tapti
River
flow
in
their
present
journey
to
the
Arabian
Sea.
All
this,
however,
is
speculation
and
conjecture
because
it
is
only
recently
that
an
interest
has
developed
in
the
fossils
of
Mandla
and
detailed
scientific
studies
are
still
wanting.
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