1984
In 1984 an Indian postal stamp with a portrait of Wadia was issued.
https://www.amazon.com/Geology-India-D-N-Wadia/dp/0070966346/?tag=2022091-20
1975
https://www.amazon.com/Geology-India-Darashaw-Nosherwan-Wadia/dp/1340907704/?tag=2022091-20
Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia was born on October 25, 1883 in Surat, Gujarat, India, the fourth of nine children of Nosherwan and Gooverbai Wadia. They belonged to Parsi family who had traditionally been shipbuilders and another member of this community included Ardaseer Cursetjee, the first Indian elected Fellow of the Royal Society.
Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia received his early schooling in a private school at Surat and later at Sir J.J. English School before the family moved to Baroda in 1894 where he went to Baroda High School.
The interest in science was instilled by his oldest brother, Munchershaw N. Wadia who was an educationist in the princely state of Baroda. At 16 years, he moved to Baroda College, where he was influenced by Adarji M. Masani the professor of natural history and Aravind Ghosh. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in 1903 in botany and zoology and another Bachelor of Science in 1905 in botany and geology. In 1905 he graduated with a Master of Arts in biology and geology and began to teach undergraduates.
At the age of 23, Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia obtained the post of a Professor of Geology at the Prince of Wales College at Jammu and continued to work there for the next fourteen years.
Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia found the college very supportive. The location also allowed him to make geological studies in the adjoining region. He spent vacations in the Himalayan region, collecting rocks and fossils. In 1919 he published a textbook of Geology for students, the first new work after the Manual of geology in India which had been revised in 1893. Several editions (sixth in 1966) were to be produced later and this continues to be a major text in Indian geology. In 1925 he discovered tusks and fragments of the extinct elephant-like animal already described as Stegodon ganesa.
In 1920, the Geological Survey of India (GSI) expanded from 20 to 32 scientific officers. In 1921, a post was offered to Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia, then aged 37. He was not the first Indian to join the Survey, but was the first who did not have a degree from a European university. His early work was on the geology of the Himalayas and it involved careful field work and mapping. He collected numerous Middle and Upper Cambrian trilobites which were studied by F R C Reed in 1934. Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia also found Upper Triassic plant fossils and Eocene Foraminifera leading to revisions of the map of the region. When he visited the Survey headquarters at Calcutta, he lectured at the Presidency College, then under the University of Calcutta. After G. E. Pilgrim's retirement in 1928, Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia became the Paleontologist at the GSI and continued in that post until 1935. When Wadia left the GSI in 1938, it was in the rank of Assistant Superintendent, the same one in which he had joined.
After retiring from the GSI in 1938, Wadia took up an offer from the Government of Ceylon for the post of Mineralogist. This position had earlier been held by J.S. Coates but not filled since 1935. He worked on many aspects of the geology of Sri Lanka.
Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia returned to India in 1945. In 1947, he became and advisor to the government led by Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1948, Homi Jehangir Bhabha who was associated with the creation of the Indian Atomic Energy Act invited Wadia in 1949 to help survey for raw materials for use in reactors.atomic energy. This led to the extraction of thorium and uranium ores in Kerala, Bihar and Rajasthan.
Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia is remembered for his work on the stratigraphy of the Himalayas. He helped establish geological studies and investigations in India, specifically at the Institute of Himalayan Geology, which was renamed in 1976 after him as the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology. His textbook on the Geology of India, first published in 1919, continues to be in use.
In 1909 Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia married Miss Alan G. Contractor. They had a daughter who died in infancy. Wadia's first wife, Alan (married in 1909), daughter of G.P. Contractor, died in Kashmir in the mid 1930s and he married Meher Gustadji K. Medivala at Colombo in 1940.
