Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
Related Articles
- Fossils of an extinct species of animal that scientists reported in a sensational discovery from India’s Bhimbetka Rock Shelters in 2021 have been found to be belied hopes.
- Gregory Retallack, the lead author of the February 2021 paper that reported the discovery, has acknowledged to The New York Times that they are planning to correct their paper after a closer look at the site revealed the apparent fossil to really be wax smeared on a rock by a beehive.
- In March 2020, Dr. Retallack, a Professor of palaeontology at the University of Oregon, and some other researchers were given a tour of the Bhimbetka Rock Shelters, in Madhya Pradesh, by members of the Geological Survey of India when they had flown to India to attend a conference.
- There, according to The New York Times, they spotted by chance what looked like a 44-cm-wide fossil of Dickinsonia, an animal that lived at least 538 million years ago, in a cave.
- Dickinsonia fossils in other parts of the world have indicated it was circular or oval in shape, somewhat flat, with rib-like structures radiating from a central column.
- Retallack and his peers took photographs of the rock feature, since they were not carrying their tools, and determined them with further analysis to be Dickinsonia fossils. They published a paper describing their findings in February 2021.
Discrepancies found
- But when Joseph Meert, a Professor of geology at the University of Florida, visited the same Bhimbetka cave in December 2022, he found some discrepancies with the other fossil finds.
- Eventually, he was able to conclude that “the impression resulted from decay of a modern beehive which was attached to a fractured rock surface”, as he wrote in his paper published in January 2023. When Dr. Retallack was notified of these findings, he decided to have his paper corrected.
- While the fossils were believed to be legitimate, they suggested that the youngest Upper Vindhyan sediments were 540 million years old; the rock shelters are located in this area.
SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB
