Kachchh Basin of Western India : A Potential Geo-Park

A view of the Jurassic Wood Fossil Park, facing the featureless Great Rann of Kachchh (Himalayan‑sourced silty clay with salt crystal encrustation) as well as Bhanjada Hill—an igneous plug with alkaline igneous rocks, mainly phonolite, along with patches of trachyte, nepheline syenite, and mafic d***s, representing a continental rift setting. The park exposes petrified wood of Middle Jurassic age, representing fossilized tree trunks of ancient forests that once thrived in this now arid region. This landscape manifests the seismically active Island Belt Fault at the northwestern tip of the triangular‑shaped Khadir Island, which exposes Middle Jurassic rocks (Bajocian to Bathonian), Western India.

Hon’ble Vice-Chancellor, Registrar, and Faculty Members from the Krantiguru Shyamji Krishna Verma Kachchh University explore the earthquake-ravaged Vigakot Fort.
This medieval fort (1500–900 years B.P.) ruins due to the catastrophic 1819 Allahbund earthquake (M7.9–8.2), lies in the hyper-arid northern fringe of the western Great Rann of Kachchh, at the southern edge of the Thar Desert. Today surrounded by silty-clay Rann sediments, it was originally built ~1600 years ago on fluvial sediments of the Himalayan-Indus origin—deposited by ancient river systems like the Nara-Ghaggar-Hakra, offering immense geoarchaeological research potential for studying seismic impacts, paleoenvironments, and cultural resilience in arid tectonically active zones.

Photograph showing deformed foraminiferal (Nummulites) limestone exposure of Eocene age (Fulra Limestone Formation) within the Kachchh Mainland Fault Zone, Kachchh Basin, Gujarat, western India

Oxfordian Life (preserved in Dhosa Oolite Bed) of the Kachchh Rift Basin, Western India

Happy Geologist's Day to all the Amazing Geologists.

Gorge in Cretaceous formation.

Vacancy for the post of Junior Research Fellow (JRF) in ISRO funded "Mars" Project at K.S.K.V Kachchh University - Bhuj (Gujarat)

Kindly Share this information to eligible and interested candidates

Perfect Trace Fossil - Rhizocorallium, Mesozoic of Kachchh @ Western India.

Geological Map of Kachchh rift basin. (After Biswas & Deshpande, 1975),
The fossil rich stratigraphy of Kachchh represents past 200 million years of geological history from Jurassic Period to present day through the Tertiary Period.

View of Great Rann of Kachchh, Western India