THE ENVIRO HISTORY OF PONDICHERRY

THE ENVIRO HISTORY OF PONDICHERRY

N.Nandhivarman

Tamils lack sense of history. This inherent ingredient of the Tamil people is responsible for lack of recorded history at the time when every country woke up to construct its history on facts. We have to mainly depend on the literary evidences to write our history. The epic Silapathigaram gave us an insight into the landmass that is lost in the Indian Ocean.

Now we have other sources to confirm our literary references. With the knowledge explosion, thanks to the internet revolution, we get lot of information. To understand the past history of the Tamils inclusive of Pondicherry and to foresee its future we have to know about continental drifts and the theory of plate tectonics.

"The theory of continental drift that the continents move relative to one another was proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1910. It was not until 1945 that Arthur Holmes suggested a mechanism for the process-convection in the mantle. Complete evidences to convince more scientists those plate tectonics the movement of larger segments of the outermost shell of the earth as a mosaic of large rigid plates was not accomplished until the 1960's...."

The Department of Geological Sciences of the Canadian University of Saskatchewan in its web pages states that Plate Tectonics is the unifying theory that explains almost all the processes at work on the planet. To understand the evolution of our planet and to have a coherent idea on earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain belts, ocean basins and the topography of the sea floor, scholars are relying on the theory of plate tectonics.

Alfred Wagener known as the Father of Continental drift in his publication of 1912 said that " Looking at a global map it would appear that the continents could be brought together to fit like a jig saw puzzle" Mankind is one and this stands proven once again by the geological fact that continents were together at one time and drifted apart. Now everyone accepts that as solid upper Earth floats on astheno-sphere, the litho-sphere drifts".

The Earths crust since its formative years dating back to 4.6 million years is in constant motion. "Broken into a patchwork of plates and floating on currents in the fluid visco-plastic upper mantle beneath, the plates continuously collide and pull apart. The continental crust is significantly less dense than either oceanic crust or the upper mantle rocks. Some more proofs are given below.

The formation of Himalayan Mountains is due to the fact that Indian sub continent moving northwards buckling up material while colluding with the Asian continent. The scientists of the Earth Observatory of Columbia University New York confirm that the Indo-Australian plate south of Equator in the Indian Ocean area has broken into two and each is moving in one direction. In the last 50 million years Indian sub continent is drifting at 5 centimeters a year towards North. Tibetan plateau and Himalayas bear the brunt of this mounting pressure. The Altyn Tagh fault i.e. geo-fracture extends 2200 kilometers in Western China...........

TAMIL NADU: KUMARIKANDAM MEENDUM?

Researchers in the Earth and Planetary Science letters state that instead of Earth's surface being divided into 12 major plates there are now 13 plates. In the latest research by Lamont-Doherty scientists about 8 million years ago the accumulated mass of Indian subcontinent became so great that the Indo-Australian plate buckled and broke under stress. The result of this crucial stage in the collision between India and Australia is the break up of Indo-Australian plate into separate Indian and Australian plates. In The Central Indian Ocean Nature is conducting a large scale experiment for us showing what happens to the oceanic lithosphere (earths outer layer) when force is applied. Using drilled samples in 1970 scientists discovered that a broad zone of the Indian Ocean floor stretching more than 960 kilometers from east to west along with the equator was compressed and deformed. They later found that the newly created seafloor had spread outward from the mid ocean ridges in the zone and theorized that the movement of seafloor could only be fitted in only if a distinct boundary existed between Indian and Australian plates... [On this in Dinamani Tamil daily 26.01.1996 Nandhivarman had written as "Meendum Thonruma Kumari kandam?"]

The changes that could happen have been a matter of speculation. Highlighting the gravity of the situation in THE OTHERSIDE October 1997 edited by George Fernandez, Nandhivarman wrote with specific thrust on Pondicherry as follows:

WILL PONDICHERRIANS BECOME ECOLOGICAL REFUGEES?

Pondicherry, a word born out of the Frenchman's tongue is a variation of the Tamil word 'Puthucheri' which means new settlement. Now at the fag end of this century we Pondicherrians have to engage in the quest for new settlements. The danger of becoming ecological refugees looms large. This is neither soothsaying nor a prophecy of doom. A forewarning to plan our resource use in a proper manner to avert this eventuality.

A Report on Ground Water survey and exploration in the Union territory of Pondicherry and its environs prepared by a team of experts of Central Ground Water Board (Southern Region-page 13) contains the following observations:

"The general strike of the cretaceous-Paleocene formations trends NE-SW with gentle dips ranging 2 to 5 towards Southeast. The Cuddalore sandstone formation though maintains the same strike, shows a dip up to 10. The cretaceous and Paleocene beds form an inliers having been exposed due to the denudation of the overlying Cuddalore formation which overlap them completely. A low angle fault trending in NNE-SSW direction is inferred from Mudrapalayam. This fault passes just west of the bore holes drilled by Oil and Natural Gas Commission at Mudrapalayam and Muratandichavadi which when extended passes close to Rayapudukuppam where the rocks show high and irregular dips. Probably this fault takes a swerve towards North East beyond Rayapudukuppam and runs along the out crop contact between the Manaveli and Kadaperikuppam formations met with in the Oil and Natural Gas Commission bore hole at Murattandichavadi is marked by breocinted clay stone indicating probably a fault zone. The limited thickness of Kadeperikuppam formation in the bore holes at Koluvari, Mudrapalayam and Muratanndichavadi appears to be the result of the aforesaid faulting. It is presumed that this fault is met with much below at depth further north of slim hole at Alankuppam.

Photo-geological study has also confirmed the existence of a fault to the west of the coast line a straight scarp running almost parallel to Pondicherry-Marakanam East Coast Road. This straight coast line is also indicative of some structural dislocation.

These observations made since 1973 contain the shocking news about faults otherwise known as geo fractures. Dr.S.M.Ramasamy Director of the Center for Remote Sensing of Bharathidasan University explaining the findings on his project River Migration Tamil Nadu in the interview to The Hindu says

But the East-North-East-West-South-West trending faults on the contrary are showing left handed (sinistral) ongoing translational movements and again the North-West-South-East trending faults are showing right handed (extral) translation movement. Such sinisterly and dextrally moving faults display definite morph tectonic anomalies in the remotely sensed data and also in the field. In addition there is a conspicuous land subsidence between Pondicherry in the North-East and Cumbum valley in the South-West.

The same scholar in an article in the Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing dated September 1993 observed:

One such graben has been established along NE-SW trending faults in between Pondicherry- Cuddalore in the North East and Cumbum Valley in the South west ( Kodaikanal and Cumbum Valley).. It is significant to observe that the earthquake epicenters fall along such NE-SW trending fault in Pondicherry, Cuddalore, Ariyalur, Dindigul and Kodaikanal.

The findings of the Central Ground water Board and the findings based on the photographs taken by remote sensing have confirmed the existence of faults. I.e. geofractures and the earthquake epicenters in Pondicherry.

Let us seek the same scholar’s advice on actions to be taken.

The present analysis shows that the NE trending quaternary faults and the NE-SW trending quaternary reactivated faults are seismicity prone in Tamil Nadu. Hence care must be taken in avoiding developmental activities in the form of urbanization, industrialization and also construction engineering structures. Hence it can be concluded that mainly quaternary fracture systems and our quaternary reactivated pre Cambrian faults are pollution accentuating fractures in Tamil Nadu (Pondicherry) and hence pollution discharging industries should be avoided along NS trending fault systems.

Science is issuing a forewarning. Scientists have suggested steps to prevent calamities. We the citizens of Pondicherry must be concerned over these findings. Highlighting these is intended to harm none but to forewarn. Dravida Ilaignar Peravai had taken up with the Union Minister of Forests and Environment on 2.12.1995 the need to scientifically study the geofracture. Pondicherry Administration also is apprised of this through a memorandum submitted on 12-12.1995.

I appeal to the environmentalists of our country in particular to generate sufficient awareness in the corridors of power forcing our Administration to set up a team of scientists to study the geo fracture, the evil effects of pollution discharging industries. the way to arrest our ground water depletion etc.

The depletion of ground water will not only result in salt water intrusion but also will aggravate the geofracture. In fact most of our coastal villages suffer from salt water intrusion. We are getting ground water in all the colors of the rainbow, due to the contamination of ground water by pollution discharging industries. Eachangadu a tiny coastal village with 250 families even today gets water in the color of engine oil from its bore pumps. Our party's campaign led to the closure of the polluting industry in February but even after 6 months villagers suffer without clean drinking water.........

These issues were ignored. Later by 2000 when there were tremors and when in 2004 tsunami struck our coasts, some people recalled our forewarnings made from a decade ago.

And now when waves lash our coasts, drawing attention to the Sea Coast erosion N.Nandhivarman wrote an article in The New Indian Express of 4.06.2005. We reproduce it here because it shows in past decade we continue to focus on Green Issues.