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Journalism of Courage
The volcano that erupted in Iceland about a fortnight ago brought Europe to a standstill for days together. But not many know that the intensity of the eruption that caused such chaos in air traffic was just a small fraction of the kind of eruptions the earth witnessed a few hundred thousand years ago. A team of researchers led by Sheila Mishra and Sushama Deo from Punes Deccan College has been working at two sitesMorgaon,60 km from Pune,and Bori,about 100 km from Punethat reveal volcanic ash sediments belonging to the Toba volcano in Sumatra,about 3,000 km from India.
The sediments,which are a million years old,are revealed in one-to-two-km patches in these regions. While the maximum thickness of the layer in Morgaon is 0.5 metres,in Bori it measures about 2 metres. The ash was first discovered by a team of researchers from the University of Pune in 1989 at Bori and in 1991 at Morgaon, said Mishra,who along with Deo has been researching the geomorphology of these two sites and the tools found there.
Is such a volcanic eruption likely to occur in the near future? Well,one cant rule it out but it will be a few hundred thousand years from now, Mishra says.
The project undertaken by the team in 2000 involves a study of tools that have been discovered at both these sites. While over 600 toolssharp and pointedhave been excavated in a 2-km stretch at Morgaon,Bori threw up about 120. The tools at Morgaon are older than the volcanic ash and those at Bori are younger, said Deo.
With a strong resemblance to the tools of the Acheulian culture that existed in Africa about 1.6 million years ago,the researchers are also speculating the migration of homo-erectus between Africa and India. Owing to the fact that the number of tools found at Morgaon and Bori is very small compared to those excavated in Africa,it is highly possible that the technique originated in Africa and was brought to India by migrants. When the migration took place is a question we hope to answer with this excavation, said Deo.
