Canadian honour for Indian geologist - fossil named after him

Sep 19: Forty years ago an Indian scientist discovered the impressions of a soft bodied, jelly like floating organisms on the rocks of the Avlon peninsula of Canadian Newfoundland in June 1967. The discovery was 565 million old multi-cellular fossils, the oldest record of multi-cellular life on earth which provided the crucial hints in the evolution of plant life on earth.

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Indian scientist explored the area, rugged and remote not dared by many. His discovery was published in ‘The Nature’ a US science magazine, the Geological Society of America Bulletin and the geological society of India.

Now that 565 million old fossil has been named after him, Fractofusus Misrai as an honour by the Canadian scientist community to the Indian counterpart.

In a meeting in Canada’s Portugal Cove south city, Guy Narbonne and Jim Gehling announced that the Avlon fossil discovered by Mishra should be named after him and told that site of Dr. Mishra’s research that is ‘Mistaken Point’ has been declared protected area and will be visited by thousands of people every summer. Efforts to get it listed in the UNESCO world heritage site are going on.

Mr. Mishra was informed by an e-mail by Guy Narbonne which reads, “Your name appears as the discoverer of the mistaken point fossils.......”

Currently MR. Mishra runs a school ‘Bhartiya Gramin Vidyalay’ near Lucknow which he established after returning to India in 1970. He still writes papers in journals in foreign as well as Indian. Mr. Mishra also worked as a geologist in MP and then in Kumaon University where he took teaching job.