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). The area is a palaeontological site where one can find fossils that are millions of years old. It is an activity that is close to Aswatha’s heart, and she may be India’s youngest palaeontologist.
Palaeontology 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.
The fossils in Ariyalur, which she has been examining over the years reveal that at one time this could well have been a deep sea area... submerged under water.
The fossils found were mostly invertebrates, and just a few vertebrates. She has collected 74 fossil specimens so far. Her mini museum at home consists of specimens ranging from gastropods, branchiopods, ammonites to bivalves, each, billions of years old.
Starting young
For Aswatha, the passion for palaeontology was ignited quite early — at five, to be precise. While browsing through an encyclopaedia that her father gave her, a picture of an ammonite fossil caught her eye. Ammonites are prehistoric shelled marine animals. She immediately wanted it. Her mother, who knew that a specimen was available for viewing at the city’s Egmore Government Museum, took her there to view it. She was so fascinated by it that mother and daughter made several trips to the museum just to look at the specimen.
Aswatha began reading about fossils and even collected a few that were a few hundred years old. She met Dr. Ramkumar from Periyar University, Salem, TN, who, impressed with her knowledge of fossils, shared his expertise with her and guided her to the Ariyalur fossil bed.
Being called a prodigy and possibly, India’s youngest palaeontologist, and the fame she is slowly gaining are secondary to her passion for the subject. Aswatha conducts workshops and seminars at schools, colleges, and research institutes to create awareness about this field, which she feels is lacking in India.
Do not call this a hobby. “My hobbies include archaeology, concology (study and collection of shells), and collecting flora and fauna. But collecting fossils is my passion,” she says.
“Depending on my hobbies and passion, I visit different places to collect different specimen. To collect archaeological specimen, I visit ASI areas. I have found ancient smoking pipes and shards of porcelain. I visit all types of beaches to collect sea flora and fauna. To collect insects, terrestrial flora (algae, lichens) and fresh water flora, I visit forest areas,” explains Aswatha.
In keeping with her passion, Aswatha wishes to pursue palaeontology as a career; her second choice is the Indian Foreign Services.
Be a palaeontologist
Aswatha tells you how to find out if the rock you found is a fossil:
Concretions ( left ) are a solid stone-like mass often mistaken for fossils ( right ).
It’s easy to differentiate between a fossil and concretion. Look to see if you find any trace, impression, or geometric structure lines of ammonites. If you find any of these, it is a fossil; if you don’t, then it is a concretion.
Another way is to know where the rock sample was found. If it was found in the shale layer, it could be a leaf fossil. If it was found in the limestone layer, you could have stumbled upon a fossil of an invertebrate.
