18-Apr-2018: IIT Madras to map Bagh-e-Naya Qila

The Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey of In­dia (ASI) will be us­ing Ground Pen­e­trat­ing Radar (GPR) to map the con­tours of the area around the Bagh-e-Naya Qila ex­ca­vated gar­den in the Gol­conda Fort. It has roped in the In­dian In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy-Madras (IITM) to carry out the map­ping.

This medieval gar­den in Hy­der­abad is the only one of its kind still in­tact. The oth­ers — built dur­ing the Qutb Shahi rule (1518-1687) — have ei­ther been built over or have dis­ap­peared. The contour map­ping was ne­ces­si­tated by the im­pend­ing ad­vance of the Hy­der­abad Golf Club, which wants to ex­pand its 18-hole course into a 21-hole one by tak­ing over some of the land ad­join­ing the Bagh-e-Naya Qila. A GPR map would re­veal any buried relics. The Hy­der­abad Golf Club wants to add a few more holes on the other side of the gar­den. We don’t want to lose any more his­tory. We want to en­sure that there are no relics of the Bagh-e-Naya Qila un­der­neath and hence we are plan­ning to map the area. We would have liked to do this with a Light De­tec­tion and Radar (LiDAR) but for that the per­mis­sion of the De­fence Min­istry is required.

The Naya Qila gar­den in­side Gol­conda Fort was built by rulers of the Dec­can and is one of the few sym­met­ri­cal gar­dens ex­tant.

In 2014, when the ASI ex­ca­vated the area af­ter di­vert­ing the wa­ter flow, it dis­cov­ered wa­ter chan­nels, set­tle­ment tanks, walk­ways, foun­tains, grav­ity pumps, and other gar­den relics. An ear­lier ex­ca­va­tion un­earthed gold coins in the golf course area.

The IIT-Madras team has been informed to map­ the area be­fore the mon­soon.

25-Mar-2018: World's longest sandstone cave discovered in Meghalaya

The world's longest sandstone cave named Krem Puri was recently discovered in Meghalaya. It has a staggering length of 24.5 km, almost three times the height of Mount Everest, and contains some dinosaur fossils from 66-76 million years ago as well.

'Krem' means 'cave' in Khasi language. The cave system which is 24,583 metres long was discovered in near Laitsohum village, located in the Mawsynram area in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills district.

Though Krem Puri had been discovered in 2016 itself, its actual length was mapped only recently when the Meghalaya Adventurers' Association (MAA) took a 25-day expedition to this end.

The dinosaur fossils in the longest sandstone cave in the world include those of the Mosasaurus, believe paleontologists. It was a carnivorous aquatic lizard that resided on Earth around 66-70 million years ago.

Krem Puri cave system is 6000 metres longer than previous record holder. The previous world record holder in the longest sandstone cave category was Venezuela's Cueva Del Saman in Edo Zulia. This is an 18,200-metre (18.2km) long quartzite sandstone cave.

Meghalaya is also home to India's longest cave in the general category - the Krem Liat Prah-Umim-Labit limestone cave system located in Jaintia Hills. It measures over 31 km in length.

Krem Puri is now the second longest cave system in the general category after this.

The North-Eastern Indian state of Meghalaya is renowned for its complex cave systems underneath the many hills. It has more than 1650 known caves and cave locations of which 1000 have been partially or fully explored. Official data says 491 kilometres of caves have been already surveyed while many more remain to be explored.

There are so many cave systems in Meghalaya located in the areas of Cherrapunji, Shella, Pynursla, Nongjri, Mawsynram and Langrin, that the explored caves amount to only five per cent of the total caves in the state.