4-feet-long bone fossils discovered in Wardha River

CHANDRAPUR: Dinosaur-like bone fossils have been discovered in the bed of Wardha River flowing through Warora tehsil here. One of the bone fossils is four feet long and a foot in width, while the other is three feet in length.
The fossils first came to the knowledge of villager Vijay Thengne and some school children from village Tulana in the Wardha River bed flowing close to their village.“Sand mafia has excavated the river bed up to eight feet depth, which led to the fossilised giant bones lying exposed. Locals speculate that the sand mafia might have thrown away other such fossils recovered during sand excavation earlier,” says geologist and environmentalist Prof Suresh Chopne.
He visited the site to examin the fossils and confirmed that they belong to the bones of some giant animal of the past. “There are layers of basalt rock dating back to 60 million years at the place, but it has got mixed with the layers of silt rock, making it difficult to fix the time period of fossils,” he said. He underlined the need to carry out scientific carbon dating procedure to estimate the period of fossils.
Chopne claimed that the bigger bone appears to be the leg of the animal, while the three-feet-long bone looks like the rib of a giant animal. Based on the size of the bones, he speculates that the animal must have been around 15 feet high and 20 feet in length. Although villagers claim they are bones of dinosaurs, he maintained that the weak and fragile nature of fossils suggest they are no more than 20,000 years old.
“I have informed the regional office of Geological Survey of India at Chandrapur about the discovery and asked the officials to recover and preserve the bones for further study. Chandrapur district has a treasure trove of such fossils, but thanks to the apathy of the government and concerned department many such fossils have been lost,” Chopne told TOI.