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Anil Kumar Gupta (born 1960) is a scientist and researcher from India who served as a Professor in the departments of geology and geophysics at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. [1] He was also the director of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, in Dehradun, India, from 2010 to 2017. His teaching interests include applied micropaleontology, paleoceanography, and marine geosciences.
Gupta was born in Budaun district of Uttar Pradesh in 1960. He graduated as a Bachelor of Science with Honors (B.Sc. [Hons]) from Aligarh Muslim University in 1980 and as a Master of Science (M.Sc.) from Banaras Hindu University in 1982. [2]
Since 2003, Gupta has been working as a professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. Prior to that, he worked as a lecturer (1987–1990), Assistant Professor (1990–1999), and Associate Professor (1999–2003) in the same institution. He was also the department's head during 2006–2009. In 2010, he became the Director of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, where he served for seven years. Thereafter, he retired from the post of Professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in March 2025.
From 1982 to 1987, he was a research fellow at the Banaras Hindu University. In 1990, he visited Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA, for a year to do his post-doctoral research. Gupta also worked as a senior NRC, USA Research Scientist at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, USA in 2001. [2]
Gupta has received several awards for his work in geology. In 2010, he received TWAS Prize from the World Academy of Sciences, Trieste. In 2012, he was granted the “J.C. Bose National Fellowship” by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, India. In 1990, the Indian Science Congress Association honored him with the “Young Scientist Award” for his remarkable contribution to Indian scientific research. In 2001, the National Research Council (NRC) of the United States of America awarded him a Senior Research Fellowship Award to work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Lab in Boulder, Colorado. In 1999, Gupta received Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship to work at Shimane University, Matsue, Japan. [1]
His honors and achievements include:
With a focus on the Indian monsoon, Gupta has made contributions to the fields of micropaleontology, paleoclimatology, and pale-oceanography with special reference to the Indian monsoon system. Gupta assisted in the publication of "Inventory of Glacial Lakes of Uttarakhand". [5] More than 176 of his articles have been published in high-impact journals like Nature, Science, Nature Geoscience , Scientific Reports , Geology, Geophysical Research Letters , and Palaeo3.
Gupta's work focuses on decadal to century and millennial scale changes in the South Asian/Indian monsoon system and their teleconnection with climatic shifts in the North Atlantic based on proxy records from the Arabian Sea, Indian Himalaya, and Ganga Basin. He and his team have made new insights in utilizing microfossil foraminifera from the Arabian Sea to identify both short- and long-term shifts in the South Asian/Indian monsoon during the Quaternary. [6] [7] [8] His studies have made advances in linking Asian/Indian monsoon failures to societal collapses, [9] [10] human migrations, and changes in agricultural practices in South Asia during the Holocene. His recent studies from the Himalayan and Ganga Basin lakes indicate a long arid phase during 4,350-2,900 years BP that led to the displacement of Indus settlements and a major change in agricultural practices including land use pattern. [11] Furthermore, his studies foresee more extreme events in the Asian/Indian monsoon behavior in future as the Earth will warm owing to both natural forcing and human intervention. These research findings provide means to better perform climate modeling efforts.
In order to understand the history of Indian monsoon variability, as well as oceanic changes in the Indian Ocean, Gupta has studied benthic and planktic foraminifera as well as their stable isotopes from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) cores. [2] At time scales ranging from decadal to millennial and orbital, he has made contributions to the knowledge of the past behavior of the Indian monsoon system and ocean circulation. His research includes the first description of the Indian Ocean Dipole in a paleo record, and the documentation of Bond cycles [12] in the paleo record of the Indian monsoon over the Holocene. To understand precipitation variations in the region, Gupta has initiated new research projects on lake deposits and cave carbonates (speleothems) from different parts of the Indian landmass. He has produced the longest speleothem record from India that documents important shifts in the intensity of the Indian monsoon for the first time. [13] At the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, he has created laboratories that meet international standards with the equipment necessary to do high resolution paleo-monsoonal research utilizing marine sediments, lake deposits, and cave carbonates. Gupta has also mentored twenty doctoral students.
Gupta has authored multiple peer-reviewed research papers in high impact-factor journals including Nature, Science, Nature Geoscience, Nature Scientific Reports, Geology and Geophysical Research Letters, etc. [14] He has published a book entitled, "Neogene Deep Water Benthic Foraminifera from the Indian Ocean – A Monograph" on Nova publishers. Some of his notable publications are listed below:
The Holocene is the current geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene is an interglacial period within the ongoing glacial cycles of the Quaternary, and is equivalent to Marine Isotope Stage 1.
The Thar Desert, also known as the Great Indian Desert, is an arid region in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent that covers an area of 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi) in India and Pakistan. It is the world's 18th-largest desert, and the world's 9th-largest hot subtropical desert.
The Himalayas, or Himalaya is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has several peaks exceeding an elevation of 8,000 m (26,000 ft) including Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth. The mountain range runs for 2,400 km (1,500 mi) as an arc from west-northwest to east-southeast at the northern end of the Indian subcontinent.
A monsoon is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscillation of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) between its limits to the north and south of the equator. Usually, the term monsoon is used to refer to the rainy phase of a seasonally changing pattern, although technically there is also a dry phase. The term is also sometimes used to describe locally heavy but short-term rains.
The climate of India consists of a wide range of weather conditions across a vast geographic scale and varied topography. Based on the Köppen system, India encompasses a diverse array of climatic subtypes. These range from arid and semi-arid regions in the west to highland, sub-arctic, tundra, and ice cap climates in the northern Himalayan regions, varying with elevation.
Valley of Flowers National Park is an Indian national park which was established in 1982. It is located in Chamoli in the state of Uttarakhand and is known for its meadows of endemic alpine flowers and the variety of flora. This richly diverse area is also home to rare and endangered animals, including the Asiatic black bear, snow leopard, musk deer, brown bear, red fox and blue sheep. Birds found in the park include Himalayan monal pheasant and other high-altitude birds.
The Ghaggar-Hakra River is an intermittent river in India and Pakistan that flows only during the monsoon season. The river is known as Ghaggar before the Ottu barrage at 29.4875°N 74.8925°E, and as Hakra downstream of the barrage in the Thar Desert. In pre-Harappan times the Ghaggar was a tributary of the Sutlej. It is still connected to this paleochannel of the Sutlej, and possibly the Yamuna, which ended in the Nara River, presently a delta channel of the Indus River joining the sea via Sir Creek.
The Mandakini River is a tributary of the Alaknanda River in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. The river runs for approximately 81 kilometres (50 mi) between the Rudraprayag and Sonprayag areas and emerges from the Chorabari Glacier. The Mandakini merges with river Songanga at Sonprayag and flows past the Hindu temple Madhyamaheshwar at Ukhimath. At the end of its course it drains into the Alaknanda, which flows into the Ganges.
The 4.2-kiloyear BP aridification event, also known as the 4.2 ka event, was one of the most severe climatic events of the Holocene epoch. It defines the beginning of the current Meghalayan age in the Holocene epoch.
Bond events are North Atlantic ice rafting events which Gerard Bond sought to link to climate fluctuations in the Holocene. Eight such events have been identified. Bond events were previously believed to exhibit a roughly c. 1,500-year cycle, but the primary period of variability is now put at c. 1,000 years.
Doon University is a state public university located in Dehradun in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand.
Chandra Prakash Kala is an Indian ecologist and professor. His research interests include alpine ecology, conservation biology, indigenous knowledge systems, ethnobotany and medicinal aromatic plants. He is an assistant professor in the faculty area of Ecosystem and Environment Management at the Indian Institute of Forest Management.
Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun is an autonomous Natural Resources research institute for the study of Geology of the Himalaya under the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. It was established in June 1968 in the Botany Department, Delhi University, the Institute was shifted to Dehradun, Uttarakhand during April 1976.
Khadg Singh Valdiya was an Indian geologist and a former vice chancellor of Kumaon University, internationally recognized for his path-breaking work in the fields of geodynamics and Environmental Science. A 2007 recipient of Padma Shri, he was honoured again by the Government of India in 2015 with Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award.
Rengaswamy Ramesh (1956–2018) was an Indian climatologist, oceanographer, a former Prof. Satish Dhawan Professor at the Physical Research Laboratory and a senior professor at the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar. He was known for paleo-climatic and paleo-oceanographic studies and was an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences, India as well as of The World Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 1998.
Sreedharan Krishnakumari Satheesh is an Indian meteorologist and a professor at the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). He holds the chair of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change, a centre under the umbrella of the IISc for researches on climate variability, climate change and their impact on the environment. He is known for his studies on atmospheric aerosols and is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian Academy of Sciences Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India as well as The World Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 2009. He received the TWAS Prize of The World Academy of Sciences in 2011. In 2018, he received the Infosys Prize, one of the highest monetary awards in India that recognize excellence in science and research, for his work in the field of climate change.
The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from about 950 CE to about 1250 CE. Climate proxy records show peak warmth occurred at different times for different regions, which indicate that the MWP was not a globally uniform event. Some refer to the MWP as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly to emphasize that climatic effects other than temperature were also important.
The paleogeography of the India–Asia collision system is the reconstructed geological and geomorphological evolution within the collision zone of the Himalayan orogenic belt. The continental collision between the Indian Plate and Eurasian Plate is one of the world's most renowned and most studied convergent systems. However, many mechanisms remain controversial. Some of the highly debated issues include the onset timing of continental collision, the time at which the Tibetan plateau reached its present elevation and how tectonic processes interacted with other geological mechanisms. These mechanisms are crucial for the understanding of Mesozoic and Cenozoic tectonic evolution, paleoclimate and paleontology, such as the interaction between the Himalayas orogenic growth and the Asian monsoon system, as well as the dispersal and speciation of fauna. Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain how the paleogeography of the collision system could have developed. Important ideas include the synchronous collision hypothesis, the Lhasa-plano hypothesis and the southward draining of major river systems.
Earth system interactions across mountain belts are interactions between processes occurring in the different systems or "spheres" of the Earth, as these influence and respond to each other through time. Earth system interactions involve processes occurring at the atomic to planetary scale which create linear and non-linear feedback(s) involving multiple Earth systems. This complexity makes modelling Earth system interactions difficult because it can be unclear how processes of different scales within the Earth interact to produce larger scale processes which collectively represent the dynamics of the Earth as an intricate interactive adaptive system.
Ashok Kumar Singhvi is an Indian geoscientist and former Dean of Physical Research Laboratory. His field of expertise is Geophysics, Quaternary Sciences and Quantitative Geomorphology.
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