Green Tourism in Mountain Regions - Reducing Vulnerability and Promoting People and Place Centric Development in the Himalayas

In recent years, mountain regions are attracting great attention to Indian tourists in general and foreign tourists in particular. The potential mountain resources for promoting green tourism are enormous in the form of natural and cultural heritage such as biosphere reserves, flora and fauna, lakes and rivers and traditional rural resources. In order to utilise tourism industry market, uncontrolled numbers of tourists and related haphazard infrastructural facilities in the vulnerable mountain regions pose serious environmental implications. The ecological pressures are threatening land, water and wild life resources through direct and indirect environmental impacts together with generation of solid and liquid wastes, so green tourism is emerging as an important task in order to develop new relationship between communities, government agencies and private sectors. The strategy focuses on ecological understanding, environmental protection and ecodevelopment. The major attributes of the green tourism include environmental conservation and education and distribution of income to local people based on strong partnership. Various knowledge systems go a long way for achieving the goals of the green tourism, which creates awareness about the value of environmental resources. Mountains have ecological, recreational, educational and scientific values, which need to be utilised in sustainable way. Various tourist activities andfacilities need to be diversified in order to achieve multiple benefits including scientific field excursion, recreation in natural and cultural areas, community festivals and sport tourisms. Green tourism considers tourism development as an integral part of a national and regional development. The paper discusses the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the green tourism with particular reference to village tourism development programme taking empirical evidences from the Himalaya. Such programme also minimises biophysical and human vulnerability and risks in mountain regions. The environmental consciousness campaign and introduction of code through multi- purpose Tourist Resource Centres are gaining currency in above context.     

Crustal model based on aeromagnetic profiles,gravity studies and wave velocities in rocks and crust

Summary Regional airborne magnetic profiles from India and U.S.A. are analyzed. Profiles are i) 130 km offshore Manglore to 60 km offshore Madras (India) along 13th parallel; ii) Washington to San Francisco (U.S.A.): iii) Brownsville (Texas) to Guatemala City (Mexico). Depth to the sources of magnetic anomalies along Manglore-Madras profile and Washington-San Francisco profiles is calculated either by elementary approximation ofSmellie or Prism model method ofVacquier et al. It is significant that depth values for some of the anomalies obtained by these methods are in very good agreement with those based on drilling data. The magnetic pictures along these profiles are compared with Bouguer gravity anomaly maps and it is shown that in almost all cases where magnetic bodies lie below 5 km (approximately) from sea level they are not reflected in gravity maps whereas all the magnetic bodies which are above 5 km (approximately) produce a markable feature in Bouguer gravity anomaly. This indicates that density of material below this level is almost equal to that of normal basic rocks (2.80 gm/cm³) and those above 5 km have a density less than this. Based on these results the top most layer in crust is considered to be metasedimentary including intrusive rocks and below this it is tentatively taken as Quartz-diorite accounting for the quartz rich Archean formations. Curves representing the variation of compressional wave velocity in i) granite; ii) quartz-diorite; iii) gabbro and iv) dunite, with pressure and temperature as reported from measurements in laboratory, are studied in the light of the general variation of P-wave velocity in the earth's crust reported from seismic sounding studies. It is found that a change in composition from metasedimentary zone to quartz diorite at about 5 km below sea level is supported by this study. It is found that further increase in compressional wave velocity in earth's crust can be explained by a compositional change from quartz diorite to gabbro. At certain places an unusual high velocity for compressional wave at the base of the crust is reported. This can be explained by considering that gabbro merges to Dunite in those areas. Based on this crustal model a probable explanation for the origin of granite masses is attempted.     

Results of airborne magnetometer profile from offshore Mangalore to offshore Madras (India) along the 13th degree parallel

Summary A study is made of an airborne magnetometer profile from 130 km offshore Mangalore to 60 km offshore Madras approximately along the 13th degree parallel obtained in May 1967 by the National Geophysical Research Institute. The total length of the profile is about 770 km. A Bouguer gravity anomaly profile along same traverse over the land section has been also studied along with the magnetic profile.Eight major anomalies on the magnetic profile were chosen for depth calculations. Depths of the magnetic bodies were determined by elementary approximation method ofSmellie. It is found that in most of the cases the sources of the magnetic anomalies lie between 5 to 20 km (approximately). Only one anomaly yielded a depth of 2.7 km for its source. These anomalies are accounted for in terms of possible basic intrusions, faults, zones of weakness and ridge-like structures in deeper Crustal levels.N.G.R.I. Contribution Number 131.     

Effect of alcohol and polyglycol ether frothers on foam stability,bubble size and coal flotation

The frothers of alcohol family (MIBC and Alpha-terpineol) were compared with polyglycol ethers (DF-1012) in terms of two phase characterization parameters like foamability, foam stability, surface activity and bubble size distribution. In this research, fundamental two phase frother characterization parameters were linked with three phase coal flotation behavior.     

Alluvial Fan-lacustrine Sedimentation and its Tectonic Implications in the Cretaceous Athgarh Gondwana Basin, Orissa, India

The Athgarh Formation is the northernmost extension of the east coast Upper Gondwana sediments of Peninsular India. The formation of the present area is a clastic succession of 700 m thick and was built against an upland scarp along the north and northwestern boundary of the basin marked by an E-W-ENE-WSW boundary fault. A regular variation in the dominant facies types and association of lithofacies from the basin margin to the basin centre reveals deposition of the succession in an alluvial fan environment with the development of proximal, mid and distal fan subenvironments with the distal part of the fan merging into a lake. Several fans coalesced along the basin margin, forming a southeasterly sloping, broad and extensive alluvial plain terminating to a lake in the centre of the basin. Aggradation of fans along the subsiding margin of the basin resulted in the Athgarh succession showing remarkable lateral facies change in the down-dip direction. The proximal fan conglomerates pass into the sandstone-dominated mid-fan deposits, which, in turn, grade into the cyclic sequences of sandstone-mudstone of the distal fan origin. Further downslope, thick sequence of lacustrine shales occur. The faulted boundary condition of the basin and a thick pile of lacustrine sediments at the centre of the basin suggest that tectonism both in the source area and depositional site has played an important role throughout the deposition of the Athgarh succession of the present area. The vertical succession fines upward with the coarse proximal deposits at the base and fine distal deposits at the top, suggesting deposition of the succession during progressive reduction of the source area relief after a single rapid uplift related to a boundary fault movement.The NW-SE trending fault defining the Son-Mahanadi basin of Lower Gondwana sediments are shear zones of great antiquity and these were rejuvenated under neo-tensional stress during Lower Gondwana sedimentation. The E-W-ENE-WSW trending fault of the Athgarh basin, on the other hand, define tensional rupture of much younger date. In the Early Cretaceous period, there was a reversal of palaeoslope in the Athgarh basin (southward slope) with respect to the Son-Mahanadi basin (northward slope). During the phase drifting of the Indian continent and with the evolution of Indian Ocean in the Early Cretaceous period, the tectonic events in the plate interior was manifested by formation of new grabens like the Athgarh graben.     

Orbits of a Charged Particle in a Skew Uniform Magnetic Field on Kerr Back Ground Geometry

In this paper we discuss the particle trajectories in a uniform magnetic field superimposed on Kerr geometry. The rotation axis of the Kerr black hole makes an angle with the asymptotic magnetic field. We find that the particle is trapped for suitable initial conditions.     

Wheat crop classification using multidate IRS LISS-I data

Multi temporal dat acquired at different growth stages increases the dimensionality information content and have advantage over single date data for crop classification. Attempt was made to select suitable single date and combination of multidate data for wheat crop classification in Nalanda district of Bihar state where pulses and other crops are also grown in rabi season. Amongst the single date data February data was found to be better for wheat classification in comparison to November. January, March and April data. Combination of first two principal components each derived from IRS LISS-I four band data acquired in January and February was found to be the best set. Wheat classification accuracy achieved was 94.54 percent.