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Delhi University takes up study of 90mn-yr-old shark fossils

Team will conduct research on 1000 fossils collected from Madhya Pradesh.

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Delhi University has taken up the study of ninety million years old shark fossils collected from Manawar-Khukshi area of the state to find how the Indian subcontinent was linked to others crores of years ago.

The department of geology, centre for advanced studies of Delhi University is studying over a 1000 fossils collected from MP including dinosaur fossil and around a hundred shark teeth.

Prof GVR Prasad, who is heading the research, said, "We expect to find endemic fauna which was there in the Indian subcontinent and the relation with other subcontinents". "The study of shark teeth will help in the marine transcription of the lower Narmada Valley into land form millions of years ago," he added.

The fossils have been collected by local researchers including Vishal Verma and his team of students from Indore and other parts of the state. “It took my team, who are college students, a year's time to collect the fossils," Verma said.

"My students were so interested in fossils that many of them have taken up zoology to understand more on fossils," he added.

So far, the researchers have identified five species of shark by studying the morphology of the teeth and claim that they belong to the Jurassic and cretaceous time of the Mesozoic era. "The modern day sharks are very different from the then sharks whose teeth had central cusp and ridges on the surface," Prof Prasad said. The size of the teeth range from 0.5 to 2 centimetres.  Prof Prasad said that in India shark teeth are found only in the Cauvery and the Bagh basin.

"The shark teeth of Cauvery basin are non-tropical and we are trying to understand the difference between the fossils of the two basins," he said. The research is expected to continue for another five months after which the department plans to publish an international paper on their findings. Remains of shark is mostly in the form of teeth since its body is made up of cartilage which degenerates in light.

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