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First report of microfauna from Siwalik sediments of Nurpur, District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India

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Abstract

We here report a new assemblage of microvertebrate and arthropod faunas from the Nurpur region of Himachal Pradesh, which erstwhile was known for mega mammalian fauna. The present assemblage consists of rodents such as Karnimata cf. K. darwini and Murinae indet; reptiles such as Crocodylia indet, ‘Colubrinae’ indet. or ‘Natricinae’ indet.; fishes such as Cyprinidae indet. and Perciformes indet.; and crab Sartoriana indet. Microvertebrate fauna are well known from the Indian Siwalik deposits but the report here from the Nurpur is the first occurrence. Further, the presence of Karnimata cf. K. darwini from Nurpur has the potential to extend the Last Appearance Datum (LAD) of Karnimata darwini up to 8.2 Ma or younger in the Indian Siwalik. The microfaunal assemblages of this locality indicate freshwater and an open terrestrial environmental condition with tropical to subtropical open grassland separated by woodland forest.

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modified from Klaus et al. (2017). Scale = 5 mm (A–E) and 1 mm (F–H).

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Acknowledgements

RKS, APS and NPS thank the Director, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun for the research facilities. The authors are also thankful to A C Nanda for the discussion. We thank anonymous reviewers for their critical remarks, which greatly improved the manuscript. The manuscript has been assigned contribution No. WIHG/0191.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, 248 001, India

    Abhishek Pratap Singh, Ramesh Kumar Sehgal & Ningthoujam Premjit Singh

  2. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, 201 002, India

    Abhishek Pratap Singh & Ramesh Kumar Sehgal

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  1. Abhishek Pratap Singh
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  2. Ramesh Kumar Sehgal
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APS, RKS and NPS did the fieldwork. All authors collected the bulk samples during the fieldwork. APS sorted the microfossils in the WIHG laboratory. All authors designed the study and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Ningthoujam Premjit Singh.

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Communicated by Pratul K Saraswati

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Singh, A.P., Sehgal, R.K. & Singh, N.P. First report of microfauna from Siwalik sediments of Nurpur, District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India. J Earth Syst Sci 131, 147 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-022-01880-7

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