Pakistan

Hans Thewissen uses a toothbrush to clean a fossil at a site in Ganda Kas in Pakistan's Punjab Province.

Paleontological and geological field work by members of the Thewissen Lab started in 1984 and has been in collaboration with Dr. S. Taseer Hussain (Howard University, Washington D.C.) and the Geological Survey of Pakistan. It has covered much of the country, from 60 million-year-old deposits near the Indian Ocean to 10,000-year-old sediments near K-2, the second highest mountain in the world.

Most collecting efforts in recent years have focused on the area between Islamabad and the Afghan Border (Punjab and North-West Frontier Province). Here, early Eocene sediments (around 50 million years old) are studied. These document a very interesting time in the history of the Indian subcontinent.

Between 140 and 65 million years ago, the Indian subcontinent was drifting in isolation in the Indian Ocean. Around 65 million years ago, the subcontinent collided with Asia, and the fossils collected document the early faunal change.

Hans Thewissen inspects a fossil at a locality yielding pakicetid whales in Pakistan's Punjab Province

These faunas contain some of the oldest representatives of several modern orders of mammals, such as artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates), and primates. Fossils collected in Pakistan also help in deciphering the origins of whales. The most primitive whales, pakicetids, are found here, as well as some very primitive coastal whales, ambulocetids and remingtonocetids.

All pictures on Dr. Thewissen's pages are public access, although the source must be identified in publication.