A MIOCENE-AGE CANYON IN VILLUPURAM IS A REPOSITORY OF CENTURIES OF GEOLOGICAL DATA

The Bommayapalayam Canyon is part of a range of ravines skirting the Auroyille bio-region.

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They were formed over centuries of downcutting by water currents of the monsoon rain ferrying topsoil and rock fragments to the Bay of Bengal. The Tamil Nadu government plans to protect the canyon, declaring it a geo-heritage site

As nature changes the colour palette, the landscape transforms from interspersed green to a swathe of mahogany, soon after the left turn at Bommayapalayam,

eight kilometres on the East Coast Road from Puducherry to Chennai. A sloped dirt road gives way to brownish-red escarpments of the Bommayapalayam Canyon, known in local parlance as “Semmanodai” (a red rivulet) in Vanur taluk of Villupuram district. Beyond the last couple of dwellings at this site lies an uneven and rugged terrain that alternates between patches of vegetation and barren earth, escarpments and narrow gullies.

The canyon is part of a range of ravines skirting the Auroville bio-region. These ravines were formed over centuries of downcutting by water currents of the monsoon rain ferrying topsoil and rock fragments to the Bay of Bengal. The Tamil Nadu government recently announced a plan to protect the canyon, believed to be a repository of geological data dating back by centuries, declaring the ravine formation with reddish earth as a geo-heritage site.

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