Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia - Other Contributions

Other Contributions

Wadia worked on Himalayan stratigraphy, dating various sections and understanding the age and origin of the ranges. He studied the fossils of the Siwaliks, examining the collections at the British Museum along with A T Hopwood and W E Swinton around 1926-27. The Trigonometrical Survey of India had found discrepancies in measurements based on triangulation and those made using astronomy observations. This was described in 1855 by Archdeacon J. H. Piatt of Calcutta and is now called the Bouguer anomaly which he explained on the basis of isostasy. Others like Airey suggested that it was due to light rocks below the Himalays while Glennie suggested a crust warp as a cause in 1930. Wadia reviewed this matter in 1938 and suggested that it required further work to resolve the debate. Another topic that interested him was the age of the Salt Range which had been suggested as either Cambrian, Pre-Cambrian or Eocene. Birbal Sahni and his fellow researchers reported angiosperms and insect fossils. Wadia suggested that there was some thrust of Cambrian plates over Eocene plates in some areas. Wadia took an interest in soil science. In 1954, he suggested that the Pleistocene Ice Age of the northern hemisphere was a time of great rainfall (the Pluvial Age) in the semi-tropical and tropical latitudes. One of his early contributions was to explain the knee-bend or syntaxis in the mountain ranges around Nanga Parbat.

Wadia presided over numerous committees and was on the editorial board of several journals. Wadia received numerous awards for his work. The Back Award from the Royal Geographical Society in 1934, the Lyell Medal from the Geological Society of London in 1943, the Joyakishan Medal from the Indian Association for the Advancement of Science in 1944, the Jagdish Bose Memorial Medal from the Royal Asiatic Society in 1947, an honorary degree of D.Sc. from the University of Delhi in 1947, the Nehru Medal of the National Geographic Society and the Padma Bhushan from India in 1958.

In 1951, a 2 Anna Indian postage stamp to commemorate the centenary of the Geological Survey of India illustrated Stegodon ganesa was released. In 1984 an Indian postal stamp with a portrait of D N Wadia was issued.