Most of these creatures perished in a massive extinction event that took place between the Permian and Triassic periods about 251 million years ago.
While the event is also captured in stone in other parts of the world, including Iran and China, it is best preserved in the Kashmir section, Bhat said.
"Studying these fossils can tell us how life evolved afresh after the extinction," Bhat said.
(Related photos: "Deerlike Mammal Was Whale Ancestor?" [December 19, 2007].)
At the same time, Indian cement manufacturers say that the limestone deposits in northern Indian states such as Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh are of particularly high quality.
Stone quarries crush and ferry limestone chips to factories where they are treated in kilns and eventually ground into cement.
Before mining any area, companies must obtain a series of government permits, including approvals from the Indian Bureau of Mines, the Ministry of Environment and Forests, and the involved state's pollution control board.
But in the disputed region of Kashmir, this system of environmental checks and balances may easily fall by the wayside.
Despite the high-grade limestone, India's leading cement companies have not opened shop in the state due to its chronic history of violence, said Asim Chattopadhyay, vice president of geomining at the cement manufacturing giant Lafarge India.
Kashmir's population is majority Muslim, and the region has been at the center of a bitter, decades-long territorial dispute between India and Pakistan that has taken tens of thousands of lives.
"There may be the possibility of illegal mining, because in such a disturbed state, nobody is willing to go and check the situation. There is a real life risk in doing so," Chattopadhyay said.
Loose Loophole
Bhat and other geologists caught wind of the mining activities at Guryul last April and immediately alerted Kashmir's geology and mining department.
Pervez Malik, the director of the department, said mining activities over a 1.5-square-mile (4-square-kilometer) stretch of the Guryul Ravine stopped soon after.
"We have brought the matter to the notice of the central government, which is now in the process of notifying the area as protected," Malik said.
But local operators can still collect loose materials lying around the fossil beds, Malik added.
Under this loophole, many operators explode Guryul rock in the middle of the night before "removing it in the name of loose materials," according to another mining department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Michael Brookfield is a professor at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan.
He traveled to Kashmir last year and saw for himself the Guryul Ravine—and the mining activities that are tearing it apart.
"If the Guryul section is destroyed," Brookfield said, "then one of the most important areas [showing] one of the most important changes in life in geological time will no longer be available for study."
Free Email News Updates
Sign up for our Inside National Geographic newsletter. Every two weeks we'll send you our top stories and pictures (see sample).
|
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES
|
