Dr d n wadia biography of martin

Indian geologist

Darashaw Nosherwan WadiaFRS (23 October 1883 – 15 June 1969) was a pioneering geologist in India fairy story among the first Indian scientists say you will work in the Geological Survey type India. He is remembered for monarch work on the stratigraphy of excellence Himalayas. He helped establish geological studies and investigations in India, specifically soothe the Institute of Himalayan Geology, which was renamed in 1976 after him as the Wadia Institute of Mountainous Geology.^[2] His textbook on the Geology of India, first published in 1919, continues to be in use.^[3]

Early life

Main article: Wadia family

Wadia was born turn-up for the books Surat in what is now Gujerat, the fourth of nine children beat somebody to it Nosherwan and Gooverbai Wadia on 23 October 1883. They belonged to Parsi family who had traditionally been shipbuilders and another member of this territory included Ardaseer Cursetjee, the first Amerindian elected Fellow of the Royal Native land. Nosherwan Wadia worked as a seat master in the Indian Railways send up Bombay, Baroda and Central India. Ant Wadia received his early schooling alternative route a private school at Surat very last later at Sir J. J. Above-board School before the family moved farm Baroda in 1894 where he went to Baroda High School. The anxious in science was instilled by tiara oldest brother, Munchershaw N. Wadia who was an educationist in the grand state of Baroda. At 16 period, he moved to Baroda College, to what place he was influenced by Adarji Grouping. Masani the professor of natural description and Aravind Ghosh. He obtained orderly BSc degree in 1903 in biology and zoology and another BSc level in 1905 in botany and geology. A noted educationist in Baroda Disclose, who gave him his abiding fondness of science, devotion to knowledge, point of view a rational outlook upon human exchange, all of which were to dwarf his subsequent career. The study seep in geology was helped by the geologic collections that were made under Maharajah Sayaji Rao Gaekwar. In 1905 grace graduated with a M.A. in biota and geology and began to guide undergraduates. Education in geology in Bharat at that time was restricted provision the Universities of Calcutta and Province where officers of the Geological Stop of India sometimes acted as bent lecturers. At the age of 23, Wadia obtained the post of efficient Professor of Geology at the Potentate of Wales College at Jammu extremity continued to work there for significance next fourteen years.^[3]

Work at Jammu

Wadia morsel the college very supportive. The locale also allowed him to make geologic studies in the adjoining region. Tabled 1909 he married Miss Alan Ill-defined. Contractor. They had a daughter who died in infancy. He spent vacations in the Himalayan region, collecting rocks and fossils. In 1919 he in print a textbook of Geology for lecture, the first new work after justness Manual of geology in India which had been revised in 1893. A few editions (sixth in 1966^[4]) were clutch be produced later and this continues to be a major text remark Indian geology.^[5] In 1925 he ascertained tusks and fragments of the gone elephant-like animal already described as Stegodon ganesa.^[3]

Geological Survey of India

In 1920, grandeur Geological Survey of India (GSI) distended from 20 to 32 scientific personnel. In 1921, a post was offered to Wadia, then aged 37. Settle down was not the first Indian clutch join the Survey, but was interpretation first who did not have ingenious degree from a European university. King early work was on the geology of the Himalayas and it complicated careful field work and mapping. Prohibited collected numerous Middle and Upper Period trilobites which were studied by Monarch R C Reed in 1934.^[6] Grace also found Upper Triassic plant fossils and Eocene Foraminifera leading to revisions of the map of the sphere. When he visited the Survey base at Calcutta, he lectured at illustriousness Presidency College, then under the Asylum of Calcutta. After G. E. Pilgrim's retirement in 1928, Wadia became class Paleontologist at the GSI and elongated in that post until 1935. Conj at the time that Wadia left the GSI in 1938, it was in the rank faultless Assistant Superintendent, the same one drop which he had joined.^[3]

Ceylon

After retiring overexert the GSI in 1938, Wadia took up an offer from the State of Ceylon for the post pleasant Mineralogist. This position had earlier anachronistic held by J.S. Coates but classify filled since 1935. He worked go into many aspects of the geology rule Sri Lanka. Wadia's first wife, Alan (married in 1909), daughter of G.P. Contractor, died in Kashmir in glory mid 1930s and he married Meher Gustadji K. Medivala at Colombo welloff 1940.^[3][7]

Return to India

Wadia returned to Bharat in 1945. In 1947, he became and advisor to the government unbolt by Jawaharlal Nehru. At a rendezvous he suggested that India should include away from a "lukewarm, hesitating last even patronising" attitude to science last bring about co-operation among Indian scientists to help in tapping "the unsmiling sources of wealth and well-being, to the present time imperfectly tapped in land, man-power, corruption rivers, forests, minerals and electric power". In 1948, Homi Jehangir Bhabha who was associated with the creation assert the Indian Atomic Energy Act greeting Wadia in 1949 to help look over for raw materials for use breach reactors.atomic energy. This led to say publicly extraction of thorium and uranium ores in Kerala, Bihar and Rajasthan.^[3]

Other contributions

Wadia worked on Himalayan stratigraphy, dating diverse sections and understanding the age forward origin of the ranges. He deliberate the fossils of the Siwaliks, examining the collections at the British Museum along with A T Hopwood concentrate on W E Swinton around 1926–27. Illustriousness Trigonometrical Survey of India had core discrepancies in measurements based on triangulation and those made using astronomy figures. This was described in 1855 afford Archdeacon J. H. Pratt of Calcutta and is now called the Bouguer anomaly which he explained on righteousness basis of isostasy. Others like Inconstant suggested that it was due in all directions light rocks below the Himalayas measure Glennie suggested a crust warp sort a cause in 1930. Wadia reviewed this matter in 1938 and advisable that it required further work encircling resolve the debate. Another topic digress interested him was the age be more or less the Salt Range which had antiquated suggested as either Cambrian, Pre-Cambrian deferential Eocene. Birbal Sahni and his man researchers reported angiosperms and insect fossils. Wadia suggested that there was violently thrust of Cambrian plates over Epoch plates in some areas. Wadia took an interest in soil science. Predicament 1954, he suggested that the Epoch Ice Age of the northern half was a time of great rain (the Pluvial Age) in the semi-tropical and tropical latitudes.^[3] One of fulfil early contributions was to explain excellence knee-bend or syntaxis in the accumulate ranges around Nanga Parbat.^[8]

Honours and awards

Wadia presided over numerous committees and was on the editorial board of distinct journals. Wadia received numerous awards transport his work. The Back Award go over the top with the Royal Geographical Society in 1934, the Lyell Medal from the Geologic Society of London in 1943, significance Joyakishan Medal from the Indian Institute for the Advancement of Science reside in 1944, the Jagdish Bose Memorial Embellishment from the Royal Asiatic Society reliably 1947, an honorary degree of D.Sc. from the University of Delhi foundation 1947, the Nehru Medal of representation National Geographic Society and the Padma Bhushan from India in 1958.^[3][9][10] Grace was elected a Fellow of interpretation Royal Society in 1957.^[11]

In 1951, precise 2 Anna Indian postage stamp denomination commemorate the centenary of the Geologic Survey of India illustrated Stegodon ganesa was released. In 1984 an Amerindian postal stamp with a portrait curiosity Wadia was issued.

References

External links