HYDERABAD : Was a part of Telangana under sea once upon a time due to climate change?
Palaeobotanists have come across fossils of extinct marine algae while studying micro fossil samples from Telangana. These fossils are from Permian period, between 299 and 251 million years ago,
before even dinosaurs existed. Palaeobotanists study fossils of plant, pollen, plankton and other spores.
Tetraporinia, Balmeela and Leiosphaeridia have been discovered from different sites in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district. These fossils were found by studies conducted earlier at Manuguru by scientists K Pauline Sabina and Neerja Jha from Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany and recently in a study on coal samples from Yellandu coalfield by DS Seetharam Naik of Osmania University.
Naik says that existence of marine algal fossils show that there was marine incursion.
Fossils of pollen and other plant material from coal samples reveal that millions of years ago Telangana was cool/temperate, humid and landscape was dominated by conifers.
In the coal samples from Yellandu fossils of pollen belonging to 20-23 species of gymnosperms that were found and from Manuguru the number was 20. Gymnosperms are a group of seed producing plants which do not bear fruits, like the conifers.
Significance of these findings
“Studying phenomena that significantly altered life on Earth can build an understanding about the future. Earth’s most devastating extinction event occurred during the end of Permian. Extinctions are
followed be evolution of new plants and animals and again extinction,” says Shreya Mishra, a scientist
at Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany.