For today’s #GreenSpacesDictionary and @mumbaismagic I was planning to write about the rivers of Mumbai. But then I have already covered the mouth of the rivers - mangroves and where they are born - the national park. So I decided to show you our rocks. 

Every Indian city with maybe the exception of a few like Kolkata has interesting rocks. Hyderabad, Pune, Nashik, Bangalore, Dharwad, laterite of West Coast and parts of the east coast, pink of Jaipur and the Aravali licking Delhi.

Mumbai is also extremely interesting when it comes to rocks and it does have a connection to biodiversity.

Our city stands on rocks created by volcanic activity many years ago and sediments in between. According to Suvrat Kher, a geologist who blogs at Rapid Uplift, if you want to know what lies beneath our feet, he says, “

The Mumbai Metro website, in their newsletter Metro Cube, has put up a series of ten articles titled 'What Lies Beneath The Earth' (issues February 2018 - December 2018). This series summarizes the geology beneath each of the sections of the metro route. It is an excellent resource.”

At our eye level, The rocks that lie in the intertidal zone are rich in marine life and you can always walk and explore the place at low tide.

And the crowning glory of our rocks is Gilbert Hill in Andheri. According to Rapid Uplift, “The famous Gilbert Hill in Andheri, made up of basalt columns, formed by polygonal cracking of lava as it cooled, has been dated to around 60 million years old. This makes it probably the youngest volcanic activity of the Deccan Province.” The one other place where you can see rocks as old is at the St Mary’s Island or Thonsepar near Udupi.

Closer home, you would have noticed the new sand that is used to build homes. They are ground and powdered rocks from the hills around Mumbai. So maybe we live in partial rock caves!

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