Coal mines in Jharkhand help retrace a long-lost world

• A Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP) study used fossils & geochemistry from open-cast coal mines in Jharkhand to reconstruct a ~300-million-year-old Gondwanan ecosystem of swampy forests and rivers.
• Provides the first-ever juvenile male cone of Glossopteris from the Damodar Basin and evidence of a Permian marine incursion (~280–290 Mya) into peninsular India.
• UPSC relevance: links Gondwana geology, Indian coal origins, palaeoclimate & sea-level analogues for modern climate change — testable in GS-I (geography) and GS-III (S&T, environment).