2025 for January 1970

Recently, the Salkhan Fossil Park has been added to UNESCO’s Tentative List for World Heritage Sites.

It is also known as Sonbhadra Fossils Park located in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
It is nestled amidst the verdant embrace of the Kaimoor Wildlife Sanctuary and within the Vindhyan mountain range.
It is home to a rich repository of fossils dating back approximately 1.4 billion years, making it one of the oldest and most well-preserved fossil sites in the world.
The site’s fossil assemblage, scattered across various formations, primarily features an exceptional collection of stromatolites, i.e. formations created by communities of cyanobacteria or blue-green algae.
It is home to Prehistoric stromatolites and living relics of the Mesoproterozoic.
Salkhan is much older than sites like Shark Bay in Australia and Yellowstone the USA.
The site’s Proterozoic stromatolites illustrate a critical watershed in the early history of life on Earth: The Great Oxidation Event.
Salkhan Fossil Park Significance: The diversity of stromatolite morphologies at the park—ranging from domal to columnar structures—reflects dynamic environmental conditions in the Proterozoic, including variations in water depth, sedimentation, and wave activity.
It falls under one of the key geo-heritage interest categories indicated by IUCN – ‘Evolution of life’ - in the 2020 ‘Guidelines for geoconservation in protected and conserved areas’.

Source: TOI

Salkhan Fossil Park FAQs

Q1: What fossil is Salkhan Fossil Park known for?

Ans: Stromatolites

Q2: Which is Asia's oldest fossil park?

Ans: Shivalik Fossil Park

Q3: What is meant by stromatolites?

Ans: Stromatolites are mineral structures built by microorganisms.