Poonam Verma

The records of Tertiary sedimentation in the Indian sub-continent brought to light thick geosynclinal and shelf deposits. Tertiary successions in India are exposed in four distinct areas, north-eastern India, southern India, western India and northern India and a good amount of palynological information is available these sequences. Inspite of good amount of palynological information available, there are many gaps in Miocene palynology of India and these gaps have been identified for future studies. The main objective of this paper is to collate and reassess the palynological data from the Miocene successions of India in the light of recent palynological advances made, gaps and future prospects. INTRODUCTION The Tertiary successions are exposed in both peninsular and extra-peninsular India (Fig.1). Miocene palynoflora are known from Assam-Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Tripura in north-eastern India; Gujarat and Maharastra in western India, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Biha...

The Quaternary sequences of central Narmada Valley of India preserve a great wealth of diverse mammalian fossils including not only the oldest hominin fossil 1,2 but also a wide range of palaeo-lithic tools 3 . In spite of witnessing human evolution, social complexities and techno-cultural advancement since late Pleistocene with changing climate under prominent Asian SW monsoon region, palaeovegetational and palaeoclimata-logical studies have not been attempted except by Nandi 4 and Patnaik et al. 5 . In the present study, an attempt has been made to reconstruct the vegetation sce-nario and climatic fluctuations on the basis of pollen proxy data in Kusumelli Swamp, central Narmada Valley, India during Holocene (Figure 1). The climate in central India has been broadly classified into four seasons: (i) winter (January–February), (ii) hot sum-mer (March–May), (iii) rainy southwest-ern monsoon (June–September) and (iv) post (northeast) monsoon (October– December) 6 . The area experience...

The pollen analytical investigation on tw o sediment profiles from central Narmada Valley, Madhya Pradesh has provided sequential changes in vegetation and corresponding fluctuation in the climate during Late Pleistocene (Baneta Formation) and middle Holocene (Kusumelli sw amp) periods. Analysis and interpretation of generated proxy data allow s recognition of open grassland type vegetation around 32,000 yr BP under cool and arid climate, w hich later on transformed into tree savannah as a consequence to improved w armer and semi-arid climate during 30,500 to 24,500 yr BP. The significant period, i.e. 23,700 to 19,700 yr BP, corresponds to Last Glacial Maximum event recording deterioration in total vegetation underneath extreme aridity and cooling of climate. The proliferation of vegetation initiated after 19,000 yr BP culminated into maximum development of tropical deciduous forest during early Holocene (11900 to 8500 yr BP). Subsequently, in betw een 8500 to 7000 yr BP, sudden coo...