Core Archive and Analysis Facility

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Supported by

        Science of Shallow Sub-surface (SSS) Program, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India

The Ghaggar/Hakra river channel has been considered to be the old course of the Vedic Sarasvati - referred to 70 times in Rig Veda, reputed to be the oldest text available in the world. Rigveda has mentioned that the Sarasvati was a mighty river flowing from the mountains to the ocean and lying between the Yamuna and the Satluj. This collaboration is aimed at generating the first-ever sub-surface data on the buried channel belt of the ancient Saraswati through resistivity surveys and sediment coring. Based on the resistivity profile, we have raised 5 cores across the Ghaggar river around Pilibangan which are currently being analysed for lithostratigraphy, sedimentology, sediment chemistry and luminescence chronology.  

Our major objective of setting up this collaboration is to link the climate change events to the disappearance of one of the most advanced ancient civilizations in the world- the Harrappan civilization. A major question to be answered in this region is: Did climate change influence ancient civilisations? In recent years, several studies have proposed that cultural transformations and societal collapse can be a response to climatic and environmental change. However, there is little direct evidence to link the global scale evidence for climate change and the far more localised evidence for cultural transformation. The response of civilisations to climate change is likely to have been complex, yet without understanding changes to the local environmental setting of cultures experiencing ‘collapse’ it remains difficult to accept linear process-response explanations. This project aims to establish a good proxy record for climate change in this region by generating high-resolution core stratigraphy from Riwasa paleolake in western Haryana plains and carry out detailed sedimentological, pollen and geochemical analysis.

This research project funded by the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) aims to assess the geomorphic and stratigraphic responses of these systems to local base level change and to understand relationships between river incision and downstream aggradation and flood hazard. The project will result in the first coherent overview of river response to base level change across the Himalayan foreland region, as well as an integrated regional hazard assessment that links upstream river basin conditions and mass movement potential with downstream flooding.

This project, funded by the Department of Science and Technology is looking at stable isotope composition of carbonates and clay minerals for paleomonsoon reconstruction and for understanding the vegetation and river response to climatic forcing. We have chosen two cores for analysis, IITK core and Bhognipur cores, from the Ganga-Yamuna interfluve in the first phase. This will be followed by detailed analysis of a few other cores presently archived at the National  facility at IIT Kanpur.

This project aims to analyse the cores for Sr isotope for provenance determination and for erosional history of the hinterland; carbonates have also been analysed for Sr and stable isotopes for picking out climatic signals; the IITK core analysis has been completed and two research papers have been written up.