JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.79, JUNE 2012

NEWS AND NOTES

Earth Day – 22 April, 2012: ‘Every Day is an Earth Day, Earth’s History and Human Impact-related Challenges’ – P. Krishnamurthy and K.S. Godhavari (Email: gsocind@gmail.com)

As part of the Earth Day 2012celebrations, the Geological Society of Indiaorganized a two day programme incollaboration with the Centre for HumanResource Development, Bangalore,comprising of a field excursion for teachersand students (21st April) around Bangaloreand the main function on 22nd that includeda walkathon and an informal interactionincluding quizzing between resourcepersons drawn from different disciplines ofEarth science and students and teachersfrom Bangalore and other places. Anobjective test for students selected from 28schools (top 5 from each school based onan objective test at school level) wasconducted. A formal function was held inthe afternoon.

Field Excursion around Bangalore

On the 21st a group of 25 students and23 teachers from Bangalore and other places(Ranibennur, Hospet, Tiptur, Hulkote etc)along with three resource persons(S.M. Gandhi, P. Krishnamurthy andP. Nagabhushana) were taken to an activequarry at Bettada Halasur near Bangaloreairport, Geological museums at two schoolsand the famous geological monument of the2.9 billion year old Peninsular Gneiss at

Lalbagh. The participants were introducedto the different aspects on the sourcing ofbuilding materials (fresh vs. weathered,massive vs. jointed, sheeted rock and othersfrom igneous, sedimentary or metamorphicrocks), the purpose for which such materialsare quarried (road metal, chips for concretemixtures, blocks for houses, large singleblocks, often 2-10 m long as seen in someIndian temples for sculpturing and carvingetc). Aspects on environmental problems/challenges posed by quarries such as noiseand dust pollution, loss of vegetation etcwere also appraised to the participants. Suchexcavations have led to few small man-madelakes or ponds around the quarry, whichacted both as a source of water, pollutedfrom litter and garbage. The visit to thequarry at close quarters enabled the parti-cipants to understand clearly the human-impact related challenges to sustain such aquarry-land-water body system.

Visit to Geological Museums: Twoschools, Sri Vani Vidhya Kendra and SriVidhya (CBSE) schools at Machohalli, haveexcellent museums, both indoor and an openair, with numerous specimens of differentrock types, ores, semi-precious and preciousgem stones, fossils (both plant and animals)

such as fossil wood, ammonites, gastropodsand others. At Sri Vidhya School, thegeological time of 4.6 billion years withdifferent eras (Precambrian to Cenozoic) hasbeen exhibited along with key events in theearth’s history. Shyama Sundara Sharma, aphysicist, has developed both the museumsand explained to the participants the Earth’shistory and also the different samples to theparticipants. The exhibits of dinosaurs,almost to their natural size, amidst the rockgarden, was a unique feature. Sharma alsoclarified the numerous questions raised bythe students and teachers. Besides thegeological museum, the participants alsohad a glimpse of a host of herbs and exotictrees in the school premises.

Visit to Lalbagh: En route to Lalbaghvia the Nice road, the participants had agood view of the gneisses, granites, basicdykes which intrude them besides the effectof weathering and soil formation. AtLalbagh the students and teachers wereshown the excellent exposures of thePeninsular Gneiss with an age of 2.9 billionyears. How such an age is obtainedmeasuring Uranium – Lead isotopes presentin the rock by a mass spectrometer wasexplained to the participants.

Bettada Halasur quarry near Bangalore airport.

JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.79, JUNE 2012

Earth Day Celebrations

Earth Day celebrations (22nd April)began with a march by students, teachersand others from the Society office atGavipuram to the Ramakrishna Mutt atBull Temple Road and returning to thevenue – Udaya Bhanu Kala Sangha.

Interactive Session between ResourcePersons and Students

The march by students was followed by

an informal interactive session in whichexperts from different disciplines of EarthSciences namely M.S. Rao (formerlyGSI), Prof. B. Mahabaleswar (BangaloreUniversity), S.M. Gandhi (formerlyHindustan-Zinc Ltd.), and R.N. Patra (GSI)outlined briefly the history of the Earthfollowed by evolution of life from primitiveforms to the humans during the differentepochs and subsequently the human-impacton the planet because increase in population

from about 1 billion in 1804 to over 6 billionby 2000. Global warming, as part of climatechange, attributed mainly due to carbondioxide emissions (from about 280 ppm inthe atmosphere before the industrialrevolution to about 380 ppm at the presenttime) by burning fossil fuels, such as coal,oil and gas for electricity generation andtransport besides the destruction of tropicalrain forests and other green belts. The fearof the disappearance of the polar ice caps

660 NEWS AND NOTES

a b

c d

e f

(a) Participants at the rock gardens. (b) Walkathon from the Society office to Ramakrishna Mutt and back to the venue. (c-e) Groupphoto of the participants. (f) Interactive session.

JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.79, JUNE 2012

and the rise of sea level (some 30 m)submerging coastal areas of the world wasbrought out. Glacial-interglacial cycles atabout 10,000 years intervals is a possibility,the present being an inter-glacial period.

In the second phase of interactionbetween resource persons comprising ofK.C. Subash Chandra (formerly DMG),T.N. Venugopal (formerly DMG),Y. Lingaraju (formerly DMG/GlobalTechnology Institute), Prof. K.R.Y. Simha(IISc) and T.R. Anantharamu, (formerlyGSI), there was a lively interaction betweenthe participants and the resource personssince it included quizzing on the mineralwealth of Karnataka (iron, gold and others),famous mines (KGF, Hutti, Bellary andothers), water resources of Bangalore,quality of drinking water, besides questionsfrom students and teachers that wereanswered by the experts. Questions rangedfrom the quantum of destruction of forests,alternate sources of energy (other than oil),renewable energy, etc., all leading to oneimportant message that human-impactrelated problems/challenges need to beconfronted with innovative ideas involvingreduction on the demand for resourcesthrough reuse and recycling materials as alsotaking care as not to encroach forest areasor pollute the environment that endangersother species, both plant and animals (lossof biodiversity) that have equal right to co-exist. These are very useful to human beingssince they provide basic raw materials forresearches in medicines (e.g. cancer cureand others) and also for agricultural needssuch as the development of new pest-resistant breeds of seeds etc.

The students were also given anobjective test to select the first four studentsamong the 132 students from differentschools of Bangalore and outside. Studentswere also asked to list the steps to be takento protect the Earth from human-impacts.

The formal function began in theafternoon with Nagesh Hegde, well knownenvironmentalist of Bangalore as the chiefguest and B.K. Bansal, Advisor, MoES,Govt. of India, New Delhi who presidedover the function. Yellappa Reddy, IFS, V.S.Prakash, Director, Disaster managementCell, Govt. of Karnataka, Md. Najeeb,Regional Director, CGWB, Bangalore werethe guests of honour. R.H. Sawkar,

steadily and the water from Cauvery Riverand other resources are becoming scarce.Prakash alluded the Earth to a loving andcaring mother, since Earth holding its firein the form of molten iron at the outer core,provides a beautiful and supporting exteriorwith oceans and land that are fertile andabundant with life that coexist and each onesupporting the other latently or blatantly inthe food chain. Humans must respect thisorder and should plan ahead for naturaldisasters like drought, tsunami, cyclone etc.,since prediction on these natural disasters

Secretary, Geological Society of Indiaformally welcomed the guests and P.Krishnamurthy, Co-ordinator Earth Day-2012, introduced the theme ‘Every Day isan Earth Day’. A booklet on ‘RainwaterHarvesting and Groundwater Developmentin Greater Bengaluru Region’ by R.H.Sawkar was released on the occasion byYellappa Reddy who emphasized the needfor rain water harvesting to augmentgroundwater sources in Bangalore sincethe quantum of available water for theburgeoning population is decreasing

NEWS AND NOTES 661

Yellappa Reddy released the booklet on Rainwater Harvesting and GroundwaterDevelopment in Greater Bengaluru Region by R.H. Sawkar.

B.K. Bansal, Advisor, Ministry of Earth Sciences presenting the award to winners of theschool level test.

JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.79, JUNE 2012

have become better. Najeeb highlighted theunique properties and qualities of water thathas a bearing on the weather and climate asalso it can reach from great depths to thetop of the tree to nourish the leaves to dotheir job of photosynthesis and oxygenrelease taking the carbon dioxide which werelease to the atmosphere through variousroutes. He also re-emphasized the need toprotect water bodies from pollution in ourown interest since pollution of groundwateraquifers are difficult or impossible to clean.Nagesh Hegde, in his address, highlightedthe degradation of air, land and water dueto numerous developmental activities, manyof which have been shown to be non-sustainable and had caused great damageto the environment. In order to highlight theeffect of humans who came very recently interms of geological time, he compressed theage of the Earth i.e., 4.6 billion years to 46days and hence human beings appeared justa few seconds ago and yet caused so muchdamage. Humans continued to be the mostpowerful geological agent since theirnumbers have increased many fold from theearly 20th century. The emission of CO2 hasincreased more than three times the emissionfrom volcanoes. Human activity hasincreased the sediment output from theGanges to Bay of Bengal by about 1600 MT/year and similarly in the Amazon it hasincreased 3 times. Hegde opined that a newkind of geologist should come onto the

scene to protect and take care of the Earth.Dr. B.K. Bansal in his Presidential addresshighlighted the increase in confidence levelsof short term weather predictions comparedto previous decades which helps the farmers,fishermen and others who depend on suchforecasts. Such forecasts reach the peopleconcerned by mobile phones and these havebeen of great help. He also outlined as hownatural hazards such as earthquakes,volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, cyclones,forest fires and others have differentprediction regimes and hence the ability to

minimize human losses. He emphasized theneed to have awareness programmes at alllevels so that environmental problems arewell under-stood and the challenges madeinto opportunities. Every individual shouldcontribute to lessen the problem of pollutionand government alone should not beexpected to solve the problems. The prizesfor the different tests held at the school levelwere presented by Bansal and Hegderespectively. The function ended with a vote of thanks by Jaisimha Rao, Director,CHRD, Bangalore.

662 NEWS AND NOTES

Nagesh Hegde distributing the prizes to school students.