Senior Geologist and Dean at Dibrugarh University discovers 'Platinum' in Karbi Hills

Dibrugarh: In a major discovery in the history of Assam, the dean of the School of Earth, Atmospheric Science, Environment and Energy under Dibrugarh University had detected the presence of platinum ore in the hills of the Karbi Anglong district on Saturday last.

Senior Geologist and Dean, Dilip Majumdar had started his journey on mineralization since the year 1987.

It was in the year 2007 when Majumdar first suspected that Karbi Hills has the presence of platinum ore in it, he then visited the place to get the samples. Although, he couldn’t send the samples for further tests due to insufficient capitals and funds.

On January 2018, based on the local information from the villages at the Karbi Hills, he reached the spot which is full of vegetation and full of soil. It is to be noted that Majumdar had to work very hard in order to get those samples on such conditions.

Speaking to The Sentinel, Dean Majumdar said, “I and my team have got the samples from the hills and sent it to Indian Institute of Science Engineering Research in Bhopal for further tests. We have proceeded for 3 sample tests from our collections and acknowledged that the composition has got the ideal environment for platinum presence in it."

It was on last Saturday when Majumdar and his team took an attempt through Scanning Electron Microscope and X-Ray Defectogram and confirmed the presence of platinum in the area element-wise from their case studies.

“Platinum has got six elements in it, thus, from our preliminary study we got to know that the presence of four elements out of six is being witnessed in the Karbi Hills,” Dean Majumdar added.

He did not divulge the exact spot where the mineral was found for fear that it may lead to a rush of people.

Dean Majumdar also mentioned that with the Rule of Thumb, he and his team are now looking forward to working more on the matter for further analysis in detecting the deposit of the platinum in the region. “This is just an occurrence, to detect the deposits of the mineral we will have to work much harder,” said the Dean and Geologist Majumdar.