Fossil woods from the Siwalik sediments of Darjeeling District, West Bengal, India

Abstract

The fossil woods described in this paper form the first report from the Himalayan foot-hills near Oodlabari, a small town on Siliguri-Guwahati Highway, Darjeeling District, West Bengal. These belong to the extant genera Baubinia Linn. and Diospyros Linn. of the families fabaceae and Ebenaceae, respectively and have been described as Baubiniumpalaeo malabaricum Prakash & Prasad and Ebenoxylon miocenicum Prakash. They indicate the prevalence of tropical humid climate in the foot-hills during Siwalik sedimentation.

Plant megaflora from the Siwalik (Upper Miocene) of Darjeeling District, West Bengal, India and its palaeoclimatic and phytogeographic significance

“…3). The earlier fossil records also show their abundance from other localities in the Siwalik foothills of India and Nepal during Mio-Pliocene (Prakash & Tripathi, 1992;Prasad, 1993Prasad, , 1994aPrasad, -d, 2008Prasad, , 2012Prasad et al, , 1999Prasad et al, , 2004Antal & Awasthi, 1993;Prasad & Awasthi, 1996;Prasad & Pandey, 2008;Antal & Prasad, 1995, 1996a-c, 1997Antal et al, 1996;Bera & Khan, 2009;Khan & Bera, 2014a, b;Table 6). These fabaceous taxa have been rarely recorded from the Oligocene of Palaeogene sub-period of India (Mehrotra, 2000a, b).…”

“…It is believed that during the Neogene legumes became a major component of Indian tropical forest and distributed widely with other evergreen members. In the Siwalik sediments of Oodlabari area in the Darjeeling foothills the Fabaceae is well known by the occurrence of its fossil woods, leaves and fruits (Antal et al, 1996;Mitra & Banerjee, 2004;Prasad, 2008;Khan & Bera, 2014b; Table 6).…”

“…(ii) Moist deciduous: Clinogyne ovatus Antal & Prasad, 1995, Bombax palaeomalabaricum n. sp., P. siwalicum Antal & Prasad, 1996a, Sterculia miocolorata n.…”

“…These megafossils have been studied in detail and a variety of plant fossil assemblage recovered (Antal & Awasthi, 1993;Antal & Prasad, 1995, 1996aAntal et al, 1996;. Prasad (2008) recorded fabaceous fossil wood showing affinity with modern taxa Cynometra ramiflora L. from the Middle Siwalik sediments of Ramthi River Section in Darjeeling District West Bengal.…”

Existence of the genus Shorea in the Himalayan foot-hills of India since 5600 year B.P.

“…Shorea assamica Dyer., S buchananii Fischer, S trapizifolia (Thw.) Asthon, S. curtisii Dyer and S. stellata Dyer are known from Tertiary sediments of Himalayan foot hills (Antal et al, 1996). It is also worth to mention that palynological data obtained from Holocene sediments indicate its existence around 3000 years B.P.…”