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Radiocarbon dating of some palaeochannels in Tamil Nadu and their

significance

Article  in  Current science · December 2006

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little lower instead of terminal. Each
cone consists of 3–4 pairs of decussate
ovuliferous scales, bearing one to three
erect ovules each on the adaxial (upper)
side. For a long time, Biota was consid-
ered a part of Thuja as T. orientalis. It
was Endlicher 6 who on the basis of mor-
phological development of female gameto-
phyte and embryological characteristics,
raised this species to a new genus, Biota.
This view was supported by several
workers7–10. Singh and Oberoi9 have given
contrasting characters of Biota and Thuja.
In Biota the bark peels off as papery
scales, young branches are vertical, leaf
has an adaxial groove, ovulate cone scales
are strongly recurved at the time of polli-
nation, becoming thick and woody with a
prominent curved spine at maturity,
seeds are thick without wings and trian-
gular in cross section at maturity whereas
in Thuja the bark peels off in the form of
vertical strips, young branches are hori-
zontal, ovulate cone scales are erect, re-
main thin and papery without spine, seeds
are elliptical in cross section, thin and
with two wings. The present study shows
that Biota differs from Thuja in having
vivipary also.
Seeds normally after shedding germi-
nate in the soil when favourable condi-
tions are available, or can also germinate
after sowing under proper conditions. Biota
orientalis normally propagates through
the seeds. The seeds mature in October
and after wintering they are able to germi-
nate. During our investigations in gymno-
sperms we came across a very rare pheno-
menon of vivipary in a gymnospermic
plant, Biota orientalis growing in the bo-
tanic garden of Kumaun University, SSJ
Campus, Almora situated at an altitude
Radiocarbon dating of some palaeochannels in Tamil Nadu and their
significance
The fluvial landforms and the related life
histories of the riverine systems have al-
ways attracted the geoscientists, as these
stand as testimonies to the Late Quaternary
isostatic, eustatic and climatic events.
Hence, the mapping of fluvial landforms
CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 91, NO. 12, 25 DECEMBER 2006
SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDENCE
of 1570 m asl. Table 1 shows the cli-
matic data of Almora for the year 2005.
In late October or mid-November it was
observed that many seeds had germinated
while attached to the scale axils in the
female cones. Various stages of vivipa-
rous condition were noticed (Figure 1 a–c).
In many cases the roots had emerged
completely and the shoot regions (includ-
ing cotyledons) were partially out and
partially inside the seed-coat and they
were green in colour. Some of the germi-
nated seeds appeared dried and more or
less shrivelled. When these seeds were
put in a petri dish lined with moist blot-
ter and in the soil, they showed further
growth (Figure 1 d).
Some seeds, which had not germinated
in the cones, were also subjected to germi-
nation in the laboratory, and they germi-
nated within a week. On perusal of
literature on gymnosperms, the present
report of in situ germination is new. In
mangroves (Rhizophora, Avecinnia, etc.)
it is a known fact that vivipary is an ad-
aptation for propagation and survival of
these plants. It may be that Biota has also
adapted itself for more ensured and better
propagation. This phenomenon can be
utilized in better propagation of the said
plant whereby one can avoid the loss of
seedlings and seeds due to various rea-
sons like animal pickings or due to deg-
radation by soil microbes under natural
conditions.
1. Duke, J. A. and Ayensu, E. S., Medicinal
Plants of China, Reference Publications,
Inc, 1985.
2. Nguyen, V. D. and Doan, T. N., Medici-
nal Plants in Vietnam, World Health Or-
ganisation, 1989.
and derivation of Late Quaternary geo-
logical histories by dating such fluvial
features have grown phenomenally all
over the world. However, as far as the
dating of such Late Quaternary events are
concerned, various dating methods, viz.
3. Yeung, Him-Chi, Handbook of Chinese
Herbs and Formulas, Institute of Chi-
nese Medicine, Los Angeles, 1985.
4. Brown, D., Encyclopaedia of Herbs and
their Uses, Dorling Kindersley, London,
1995.
5. Rushforth, K., Conifers, Christopher
Helm, 1987.
6. Endlicher, S. L. F., Synopsis Conifera-
rum, Sangalli, 1847.
7. Buchholz, J. T., Generic and subgeneric
distribution of Coniferales. Bot. Gaz.,
1948, 110, 80–91.
8. Martin, P. C., A morphological compari-
son of Biota and Thuja. Proc. Pa. Acad.
Sci., 1950, 24, 65–112.
9. Singh, H. and Oberoi, Y. P., Phytomor-
phology, 1962, 12, 373–393.
10. Singh, H., Embryology of Gymnosperms.
Encyclopaedia of Plant Anatomy, Ge-
bruder Borntraeger, Berlin, 1978, vol. X.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. We thank Dr
K. N. Pandey, Professor and Head, Depart-
ment of Botany, SSJ Campus Almora, for
providing the necessary facilities to conduct
the present study and Dr A. K. Yadava, for
taking the photographs of the plant under
study. Thanks are also due to the Director,
Vivekanand Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan
Sansthan, ICAR, Almora for providing
meteorological data.
Received 17 March 2006; revised accepted 23
August 2006
S. S. GAHALAIN*
R. L. FOTEDAR
R. C. GUPTA
Department of Botany,
Kumaun University,
SSJ Campus,
Almora 263601, India
*For correspondence.
archaeological, epigraphical, historical,
thermo-luminescence, radiocarbon, etc.
have commonly been used1–7.
In the Indian subcontinent, a number
of studies have been carried out to under-
stand the Late Quaternary geological and
1609
SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDENCE

Figure 1. Palaeochannel/palaeo-drainage map of Tamil Nadu. a, Palaeochannel system (PCS-1, PCS-2 and PCS-3) branching off from
river Cauvery, PCS-1 having five channels (C1–C5) along Hogenekkal–Chennai, PCS-2 having channels (C6) along Stanley reservoir –
present day tract of Ponnaiyar river and PCS-3 having twelve channels (C7–C19) in different parts of Tiruchirappalli–Pudukottai and pre-
sent delta of Thanjavur; b, IRS FCC imagery showing the PCS-1 ending up as two lobate deltas on the north and south of Chennai city.
The palaeochannels C1 and C2 found in northern delta are now drained respectively by Araniyar and Kortallaiyar rivers and palaeochan-
nels C3 and C4 seen in southern delta are superimposed now by Coovam and Adyar rivers; c, IRS FCC imagery showing C7, C8 and C9
palaeochannels of PCS-3 in Tiruchirappalli–Pudukottai region, respectively superimposed by Vellar, Ambuliyar and Agniyar rivers; d, IRS
FCC imagery showing palaeochannels C10 to C19 of PCS-3 currently occupied by Pamaniyar, Vennar, Vettar, Krittamanar, Arasalar,
Kudamurutiar, Palam Cauvery, Palavar and Manniyar rivers; e, IRS FCC imagery showing the superimposed drainage.

1610 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 91, NO. 12, 25 DECEMBER 2006


climatic events by dating the fluvial land-
forms using various dating methods.
Amongst these, the Vedic river Saraswati
of Western India has attracted a large
number of scientists not only for eluci-
dating the life history of the lost Saras-
wati river but also for building the Late
Quaternary geological–climatic history
of the region through various dating
methods 8–20.
The present paper deals with some of
the findings of radiocarbon dating of the
palaeochannels of mighty river Cauvery
(Figure 1) and the correlation of these
dates with already available archaeologi-
cal, epigraphical, historical and Tamil
literature dates.
Vaidyanathan21 observed that Cauvery
has earlier flowed northeasterly along Hoge-
nekkal–Chennai and later migrated south
towards Tiruchirappalli–Thanjavur plains
due to tectonic movements. Radha-
krishna 22 observed that such southerly
migration of Cauvery is due to N–S
Holocene block faulting in Bilgirirangan
hill ranges.
Ramasamy et al. 23 interpreted three
major palaeochannel systems (PCS-1–
PCS-3), all branching off from Cauvery
(Figure 1), such as PCS-1 along Hogenek-
kal–Kaveripattinam–Ambur–Walajapet–
north of Chennai, PCS-2 along Stanley res-
ervoir–Harur–present day tract of river
Ponnaiyar and PCS-3 in different parts of
Tiruchirappalli–Thanjavur plains (Figure
1 a). They23 have further observed five
minor palaeochannels (C1–C5) in PCS-1
and nearly twelve (C7–C18) in PCS-3
(Figure 1 a). However, all the minor palaeo-
channels found in Cuddalore–Pondicherry
region (PCS-2) were grouped as one pa-
laeochannel (C6, Figure 1 a) by them23.
Ramasamy et al. 23 assigned an age of
more than 3000 years BP (Years Before
Present) to PCS-1 of Chennai region
(Figure 2) on the basis of the following:
(i) Archaeological dating by Krishnas-
wamy24 in Kadiam, Vadamadurai, Ney-
veli and Attirampakkam areas gave an
age of Palaeolithic to 8000 years BP to
the archaeological remains located along
PCS-1. (ii) Fluorine dating carried out by
Shanti et al. 25 in Tiruvellore area indi-
cated an age of 4500 years BP for the
bones collected along PCS-1. (iii) Fluo-
rine dates of 4500–3000 years BP of the
bones collected in close proximity to
PCS-1 by Anupama et al. 26 in Payam-
palli area.
Similarly, an age of 2700–2300 years
BP was assigned to PCS-2 by Ramasamy et
CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 91, NO. 12, 25 DECEMBER 2006
SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDENCE
al.23 on the basis of urn burials and cairn
circles dated by Rajan27 southwest of Ha-
rur, Tirukkovilur stone inscriptions and
Arikkamedu Roman culture dated by
Wheeler28, all located along PCS-2 (Fig-
ure 2).
An age of 2300–750 years BP was as-
signed again by Ramasamy et al. 23 to
C7–C19 palaeochannels of PCS-3 of Ti-
ruchirappalli–Thanjavur region (Figure
2) on the basis of the following: (i) Ar-
chaeological remains in Tirukkampuliur
and Alagarai gave the date of 2300–
1000 years BP to the floodplains of Cau-
very (ref 29). (ii) Archaeological remains
of Woraiyur suggested an age of 2300–
1400 years BP (ref. 29). (iii) Stone in-
scriptions in Tiruvidaimarudur temple
indicated an age of 1000 years BP to the
palaeochannel 14 (C14). (iv) Evidences
from Tamil literature on Kudamurutiar
suggested an age of less than 1300 years
BP (ref. 30) to the palaeochannel 15
(C15). (v) Evidences from Tamil litera-
ture Periyapuranam provided an age of
900 years BP to the palaeochannel 18
(C18) (ref. 31). (vi) 750 years BP for the
present path of Coleroon river (C19) form
the Tamil Literature evidences (ref. 32).
From these dates, Ramasamy et al. 23
have concluded that Cauvery has flowed in
Chennai region (PCS-1) up to 3000 years
BP, migrated south and flowed along
Cuddalore–Pondicherry region (PCS-2)
during 2700–2300 years BP and finally
migrated again south and flowed in dif-
ferent parts of Tiruchirappalli–Thanjavur
region (PCS-3) during 2300–750 years BP
and reached the present Coleroon tract
around 750 years BP.
In the present study, the palaeochan-
nels of PCS-1 (C1–C5), PCS-2 (C6) and
PCS-3 (C7–C19) were delineated using
digitally processed IRS satellite data
(Figure 1 b–e). Ramasamy et al. 23 ob-
served that most of these palaeochannels
were superimposed by the present-day
drainages (Figure 1). So attempts were
made to precisely map the extent of the
floodplains of the palaeochannels and the
limits of the present-day superimposed
drainages within such floodplains, if any, so
that the fluvial domains of such superim-
posed drainages can be avoided and
sediment samples can be collected ex-
actly from the floodplains of the palaeo-
channels. This was done with the help of
the satellite FCC data as the same pro-
vides possibility in discriminating such
superimposed drainages from the flood-
plains of the palaeochannels as the former
occur as thin drainage lines exhibiting
bright white vegetative barren sandy beds,
whereas the latter occur as wide vegeta-
tion packed zones exhibiting thick red
tone on either sides of the centrally flow-
ing thin drainages (Figure 1 e).
Sediment samples (bituminous clay)
were collected at a depth of 2.3 to 2.5 m
from the floodplains of seven palaeo-
channels for radiocarbon dating, four
from PCS-1 of Chennai region and three
from PCS-3 of Tiruchirappalli–Thanjavur
region by carefully avoiding the sedi-
ments of superimposed streams/rivers.
The radiocarbon dating of these samples
was carried out at Physical Research Labora-
tory (PRL), Ahmedabad.
Overall, the present radiocarbon dates
corroborated with the dating carried out
earlier by the earlier workers (Figure 2).
(i) The radiocarbon date of 5060 ±
110 years BP of the C2 palaeochannel up-
stream in Pudupakkam area (16) matches
with the radiocarbon date (5110 ±
160 years BP) of Nagalakshmi and Achyu-
than33 done for the sediments collected at
2.8 m depth (19a) near Pudupakkam. (ii)
The present radiocarbon date of 7807 ±
255 years BP of the above C2 palaeo-
channel in its downstream near Ennore
(17) coincides again with radiocarbon
date (8070 ± 550 years BP) of the sedi-
ments of 3 m depth collected by Nagalak-
shmi and Achyuthan33 (19b) at the above
location. (iii) The radiocarbon dating of
C1 palaeochannel (4190 ± 80 years BP)
found to the north of C2 channel near
Pallipalayam (15) again corroborates
with the radiocarbon date of 4230 ± 130
years BP of the samples (18) collected by
the above workers 33 near Pallipalayam.
(iv) The sediments of Kolappacheri (20)
dated in the present study from C4 palaeo-
channel of the southern lobate delta gave a
radiocarbon date of 4670 ± 90 years BP
matching with fluorine dating done by
Shanti et al.25 (4500 years BP) along the
same C4 palaeochannel at Tiruvellore (5).
(v) Again, the fluorine date (4500–
3000 years BP) 26 of the combined PCS-1
palaeochannel in the upstream in Payam-
palli area (6) coincides with the present
dating (4670 ± 90 years BP) of Kolap-
pacheri (20). (vi) The radiocarbon dating
carried out in Tiruchirappalli–Thanjavur
region along C13 palaeochannel of PCS-
3 at Srivanjiam (22) gave a date of
1320 ± 100 years BP, whereas the Malli-
yam palaeochannel C15a (23) located to
the north of Srivanjiam channel indicated
a younger age of 960 ± 110 years BP.
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SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDENCE

Figure 2. Periods of river Cauvery migration and geochronology. Kadiam (1), Vadamadurai (2), Neyveli (3), Attirampakkam (4), Tiruvellore (5),
Payampalli (6) Tirukkambuliyur (7), Alagarai (8), Woraiyur (9), Tiruvidaimarudur (10), Kudamurutiar (11), Senaganur (12), Thalaignayar (13),
Coleroon (14). Pallipalayam (15), Pudupakkam (16), West of Ennore (17), West of Pudupakkam (18a, 18b and 19a, 19b), Kolappacheri (20),
Manachanallur (21), Srivanjiam (22), Malliyam (23), Kaveripoompattinam (24) PCS 1 to PCS 3 Palaeo Channel Systems (1 to 3).

Such ages fall in conformity with C15
palaeochannel (11) of 1300 years BP30
found in between both the palaeochan-
nels.
In addition to such agreement between
the present and the earlier dates, the
study has further brought out the follow-
ing information. (i) All the dates of PCS-
1 (8470 ± 550–3000 years BP) are older
than the dates of PCS-3 (2300–750 years
BP) of Cauvery delta. This confirms that
the Cauvery flowed earlier in Chennai
region and later migrated south to Ti-
ruchirappalli–Thanjavur plains. (ii)
While C2 palaeochannel flowing in the
axial region of the lobate delta (Figure
1 b) gives an older age (8470 ± 550–
5060 ± 110 YBP), the C1 palaeochannel
located to its north and the C4 channel
found to its south respectively give the
younger ages of 4230 ± 130–4190 ± 80
and 4670 ± 90–4500 years BP. This leads
to the surmise that initially the main flow
of the river would have been along C2
channel and subsequently might have
split up into two with C1 channel moving
northerly and the C3 and C4 channels mi-
grating southwards. This inference also
confirms the E–W trending cymatogenic
arching observed along the axis of the
northern lobate delta34–36. (iii) The study
further indicates gradual younging pat-
tern of palaeochannels from south to
north in parts of Thanjavur delta with
1320 ± 100 years BP to the Srivanjiam
(C13) channel in the south, C15 palaeo-

1612 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 91, NO. 12, 25 DECEMBER 2006


channel with 1300 years BP in the centre
and Malliyam palaeochannel (C15a) with
960 ± 110 years BP in the north. Such
northerly younging pattern also confirms
the overall northerly migration of river
Cauvery in its deltaic regimes from C7 to
C19 inferred by Ramasamy et al. 23 ear-
lier.
A few aberrative ages of the present
study also gain support from the earlier
workers. For example: (i) On the basis of
archaeological dating29 at Tirukkampuliyur
(2300–1600 years BP), Alagarai (1600–
1000 years BP) and Woraiyur (2300–
1400) (7–9), Ramasamy et al. 23 inferred
that the river Cauvery might have en-
tered into Tiruchirappalli–Thanjavur
plains after 2300 years BP. But, the pre-
sent radiocarbon dating of the floodplain
of Cauvery at Manachanallur (21) near
Tiruchirappalli gave an age of 2670 ±
90 years BP and the similar radiocarbon
dating done earlier 37 in Palam Cauvery’s
(C16) mouth at Kaveripoompattinam (24)
gave an age of 2316 ± 103 years BP (Fig-
ure 2). (ii) Such older dates of Manacha-
nallur and Kaveripoompattinam lead to
the inference that some earlier river might
have been flowing prior to Cauvery (visu-
alized as ‘Proto Amaravati’ by Rai-
verman38) along Tiruchirappalli–Kaveri-
poompattinam and Cauvery might have
entered into it after 2300 years BP.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. SM. R. acknow-
ledges ISRO, Dept. of Space, Bangalore which
has sanctioned the Project ‘CRUSDE’ (Crustal
Deformation Studies of South India) through
which the present studies were carried out.
Received 3 January 2005; revised accepted 3
October 2006
SM . RAMASAMY1,*
J. SARAVANAVEL1
M. G. YADAVA2
R. RAMESH2
1
Centre for Remote Sensing,
School of Geosciences,
Bharathidasan University,
Tiruchirappalli 620 023, India
2
Physical Research Laboratory,
Ahmedabad 380 009, India
*For correspondence.
e-mail: cersbard@yahoo.co.in
1613