India is not known as the land where fossils of prehistoric animals are readily available. The reason for this lack of ancient remains in India is well known. Because the Indian terrain for a long time has weathered tremendous changes due to natural phenomenon and human activity, majority of remains of ancient animals, in fossilized form or otherwise, were lost from their natural habitat long ago. In spite of that, there is always the possibility of finding something new from ground in India even now that might be of a great geological interest.

About 3 yrs. ago, in 2005, I was building a house in Ansoli (Himachal Pradesh). There was a lot of digging of soil from the ground, more than 12 feet deep, to construct septic tanks etc. The type of rocks, sand and sub-surface terrain we encountered while digging were quite strange, usually not seen in that area. One stone (weighing about 30 lbs) even looked like some kind of fossil from prehistoric times.

I suspended the excavation work and approached a geology professor in a nearby college. I told him about the strange discovery and requested him to come to our village (Ansoli) to take a look into the new find and give us his geologically expert opinion. Unfortunately, he was not able to visit the site and help us learn more about the newly discovered items from the ground.

In the meantime, even though I am not an expert in geology, I did a preliminary investigation into the strange looking stone which was shaped like a slightly deformed large egg -- a calcified or solidified thing, perhaps belonging to some prehistoric animal. I also recorded information about its measurements and physical features and took more than a dozen photographs. It was more than a foot long and 7" to 8" thick in the middle (Exhibit A). When the stone was broken into three large chunks, its inside showed a light-colored layer (shell) surrounding the gray-colored fine-grained inner mass (Exhibit B).

In conclusion, what could this 'stone' really represent -- a prehistoric egg-like fossil or a specially evolved gray-colored rock? Perhaps someone in future might be interested in doing more research work on it and show what it really is and whether or not dinosaurs etc. existed in that area (western Himalayan region) long ago.

Exhibit A: The newly found 'stone', supported on
bricks, looks like a prehistoric fossil (dino-egg perhaps).

Exhibit B: The chunks of newly found 'stone' indicating
the shape and structure of a large egg.

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By: Dr. Subhash C. Sharma
Email: [email protected]
Date: Feb. 16, 2008

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