India 2009
"Stampmania: Balasinor Dinosaur Fossil park"
| Issue Date |
18.12.2009 |
| ID |
Category: pF |
| Designer |
Theme by Prashant Pandya, cover and cancellation designed by Sapan Jhaveri |
| Covers in set |
1 |
| Value |
5 (stamp) |
| Printed by |
|
| Quantity |
|
| Issuing Authority |
India Post |
All philately exhibitions brings special covers, booklets and other postal stationary with them.
Any philately exhibition is incomplete without special issues.
During Stampmania 2009 a souvenir, a carried cover and four special covers,
one for each day, were issued.
One of these covers is dedicatd to Balasinor Dinosaur Fossil park at Raiyoli in Gujarat - one of
the third largest Dinosaur sites in the world.
This site may have been a major breeding ground for dinosaurs about 65 millions years ago.
Many dinosaur eggs and fossils were excavated from here.
The Balanasinor Dinosaur Park has been home to 7 different types of dinosaurs namely
Megalosurus, Iguanodon, Titanosaurus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus and
Brontosaurus.
The dinosaur fossils found here are divided into two orders based on their hip structure.
They are Saurischia and Ornithiscia.
The first dinosaur fossil was in form of a limb-bone in "Intrappean-Laneta" sediments in Raioli
discovered by the paleontologists of Geologicval Survey of India in 1981.
In the early 1980s, palaeontologists stumbled upon dinosaur bones and fossils during a regular
geological survey of this mineral-rich area.
The find sent ripples of excitement through neighbouring villages and
many residents picked up fossilised eggs, brought them home and worshipped them.
Since then excavations have thrown up a veritable trove of dinosaur remainseggs, bones, a skeleton
which is now kept in a Calcutta (Kolkata) museumbringing hordes of scientists and tourists to
Balasinor.
Piecing together the evidence in Balasinor, researchers now believe that Gujarat is home to one
of the largest clutch of dinosaur hatcheries in the world.
At least 13 species of dinosaurs lived here, possibly for more than 100 million years until their
extinction some 65 million years ago.
The soft soil made hatching and protecting eggs easier for the animals. So well-protected are the
fossilised eggs found here that many researchers call them the best-preserved eggs in the
world after the ones found in Aix-en-Provence in France.
USED
References
Stampmania, PhilatelyNews,
Wikipedia
