GATE Geology and Geophysics Syllabus

Subject Code: GG

Course Structure

Course Syllabus

Common Section

Unit 1: Earth and Planetary system

• Earth −
  • Size
  • Shape
  • Internal structure
  • Composition
• Concept of isostasy
• Elements of seismology −
  • Body and surface waves
  • Propagation of body waves in the earth’s interior
• Gravitational field of the Earth −
  • Geomagnetism
  • Paleomagnetism
• Continental drift −
• Plate tectonics – relationship with earthquakes
• Volcanism and mountain building
• Continental and oceanic crust −
  • Composition
  • Structure
  • Thickness

Unit 2: Weathering and soil formation

• Landforms created by −

  • River

  • Wind

  • Glacier

  • Ocean

  • Volcanoes

• Basic structural geology −

  • Stress

  • Strain

  • Material response

  • Brittle and ductile deformation

  • Nomenclature and classification of folds and faults

• Crystallography −

  • Basic crystal symmetry and concept of point groups

• Mineralogy −

  • Silicate crystal structure and determinative mineralogy of common rock forming minerals

• Petrology −

  • Mineralogy and classification of common igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks

• Geological time scale −

  • Geochronology and absolute time

• Stratigraphic principles −

  • Major stratigraphic divisions of India

• Geological and geographical distribution of −

  • Mineral in India

  • Coal in India

  • petroleum resources in India

Unit 3: Introduction to remote sensing

• Engineering properties of rocks and soils
• Ground water geology

Unit 4: Principles and applications of gravity

• Magnetic, electrical, electromagnetic, seismic and radiometric methods of prospecting for oil, mineral and ground water

• Introductory well logging

Section A: Geology

Unit 1: Geomorphic processes and agents

• Development and evolution of landforms
• Slope and drainage
• Processes in deep oceanic and near-shore regions
• Quantitative and applied geomorphology

Unit 2: Mechanism of rock deformation

• Primary and secondary structures
• Geometry and genesis of folds, faults, joints and unconformities
• Cleavage, schistosity and lineation
• Methods of projection
• Tectonites and their significance
• Shear zones
• Superposed
• Folding
• Basement-cover relationship

Unit 3: Crystallography

• Symmetry, forms and twinning

• Crystal chemistry

• Optical mineralogy, classification of minerals, diagnostic physical and optical properties of rock - forming minerals

Unit 4: Cosmic abundance of elements

• Meteorites geochemical evolution of the earth

• Geochemical cycles

• Distribution of major, minor and trace elements in crust and mantle

• Elements of geochemical thermodynamics

• Isotope geochemistry

• Geochemistry of waters including solution equilibria and water-rock interaction

Unit 5: Igneous rocks

• Classification, forms and textures

• Magmatic differentiation

• Binary and ternary phase diagrams

• Major and trace elements as monitors of partial melting and magma evolutionary processes

• Sedimentary rocks – texture and structure

• sedimentary processes and environments, sedimentary facies, provenance and basin analysis

• Metamorphic rocks – structures and textures

Unit 6: Physico-chemical conditions of metamorphism and concept of metamorphic facies, grade and baric types

• Metamorphism of pelitic, mafic and impure carbonate rocks

• Role of fluids in metamorphism

• Metamorphic P-T-t paths and their tectonic significance

• Association of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks with tectonic setting

• Igneous and metamorphic provinces and important sedimentary basins of India

Unit 7: Morphology, classification and geological significance of important

• Invertebrates
• Vertebrates
• Plant fossils
• Microfossils

Unit 8: Principles of Stratigraphy and concepts of correlation

• Lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy and chronostratigraphy
• Indian stratigraphy −
  • Precambrian
  • Phanerozoic
• Overview of Himalayan Geology

Unit 9: Ore-mineralogy and optical properties of ore minerals

• Ore forming processes vis-à-vis ore-rock association (magmatic, hydrothermal, sedimentary, supergene and metamorphogenic ores)

• Fluid inclusions as an ore genetic tool

• Coal and petroleum geology −

  • Marine mineral resources

• Prospecting and exploration of economic mineral deposits −

  • Sampling

  • Ore reserve estimation

  • Geostatistics

  • Mining methods

• Ore dressing and mineral economics

• Origin and distribution of mineral −

  • Fossil and nuclear fuel deposits in India

Unit 10: Engineering properties of rocks and soils

• Rocks as construction materials
• Role of geology in the construction of engineering structures including −
  • Dams
  • Tunnels
  • Excavation sites
• Natural hazards
• Ground water geology −
  • Exploration
  • Well hydraulics
  • Water quality
• Basic principles of remote sensing −
  • Energy sources and radiation principles
  • Atmospheric absorption
  • Interaction of energy with earth’s surface
  • Aerial-photo interpretation
  • Multispectral remote sensing in visible
  • Infrared, thermal IR and microwave regions
  • Digital processing of satellite images
• GIS −
  • Basic concepts
  • Raster and vector mode operations

Section B: Geophysics

Unit 1: The earth as a planet

• Different motions of the earth

• Gravity field of the earth, clairaut’s theorem, size and shape of earth

• Geomagnetic field, paleomagnetism

• Geothermics and heat flow

• Seismology and interior of the earth

• Variation of density, velocity, pressure, temperature, electrical and magnetic properties of the earth

• Earthquakes −

  • Causes and measurements

  • Magnitude and intensity

  • Focal mechanisms

  • Earthquake quantification

  • Source characteristics

  • Seismotectonics and seismic hazards

• Digital seismographs

Unit 2: Scalar and vector potential fields

• Laplace, Maxwell and Helmholtz equations for solution of different types of boundary value problems in Cartesian, cylindrical and spherical polar coordinates

• Green’s theorem

• Image theory

• Integral equations in potential theory

• Eikonal equation

• Ray theory

Unit 3: Absolute and relative gravity measurements

• Gravimeters, land, airborne, shipborne and bore-hole gravity surveys

• Various corrections for gravity data reduction – free air, bouguer and isostatic anomalies

• Density estimates of rocks

• Regional and residual gravity separation

• Principle of equivalent stratum

• Data enhancement techniques, upward and downward continuation

• Derivative maps, wavelength filtering; preparation and analysis of gravity maps

• Gravity anomalies and their interpretation – anomalies due to geometrical and irregular shaped bodies, depth rules, calculation of mass

Unit 4: Elements of Earth’s magnetic field

• Units of measurement
• Magnetic susceptibility of rocks and measurements
• Magnetometer land, airborne and marine magnetic surveys
• Various corrections applied to magnetic data
• IGRF
• Reduction to pole transformation
• Poisson’s relation of gravity and magnetic potential field
• Preparation of magnetic maps
• Upward and downward continuation
• Magnetic anomalies-geometrical shaped bodies
• Depth estimates
• Image processing concepts in processing of magnetic anomaly maps
• Interpretation of processed magnetic anomaly data
• Applications of gravity and magnetic methods for mineral and oil exploration

Unit 5: Conduction of electricity

• Conduction of electricity through −

  • Rocks

  • Electrical conductivities of metals

  • Nonmetals

  • Rock forming minerals

  • Different rocks

• Concepts of D.C. Resistivity measurement

• Various electrode configurations for resistivity sounding and profiling

• Application of filter theory

• Type-curves over multi-layered structures

• Dar-zarrouck parameters

• Reduction of layers

• Coefficient of anisotropy

• Interpretation of resistivity field data

• Equivalence and suppression

• Self-potential and its origin

• Field measurement

• Induced polarization

• Time and frequency domain ip measurements

• Interpretation and applications of ip, ground-water exploration, mineral exploration, environmental and engineering applications

Unit 6: Basic concept of EM induction in the earth

• Skin-depth

• Elliptic polarization

• In phase and quadrature components

• Various EM methods, measurements in different source-receiver configurations

• Earth’s natural electromagnetic field

• Tellurics, magneto-tellurics

• Geomagnetic depth sounding principles

• Electromagnetic profiling

• Time domain EM method

• EM scale modeling

• Processing of EM data and interpretation

• Geological applications including groundwater, mineral and hydrocarbon exploration

Unit 7: Seismic methods of prospecting

• Elastic properties of earth materials

• Reflection, refraction and CDP surveys

• Land and marine seismic sources

• Generation and propagation of elastic waves

• Velocity – depth models, geophones, hydrophones, recording instruments (DFS), digital formats, field layouts

• Seismic noises and noise profile analysis, optimum geophone grouping, noise cancellation by shot and geophone arrays, 2D and 3D seismic data acquisition, processing and interpretation

• CDP stacking charts, binning, filtering, dip-move out, static and dynamic corrections

• Digital seismic data processing −

  • Seismic deconvolution and migration methods

  • Attribute analysis

  • Bright and dim spots, seismic stratigraphy

  • High resolution seismic

  • VSP

  • AVO

• Reservoir geophysics

Unit 8: Geophysical signal processing

• Sampling theorem
• Aliasing
• Nyquist frequency
• Fourier series
• Periodic waveform
• Fourier and Hilbert transform
• Z-transform and wavelet transform
• Power spectrum
• Delta function
• Auto correlation
• Cross correlation
• Convolution
• Deconvolution
• Principles of digital filters
• Windows, poles and zeros

Unit 9: Principles and technique

• Principles and technique of −
  • Geophysical well-logging
  • SP
  • Resistivity
  • Induction
  • Gamma ray
  • Neutron
  • Density
  • Sonic
  • Temperature
  • Dip meter
  • Caliper
  • Nuclear magnetic
  • Cement bond logging
  • Micro-logs
• Quantitative evaluation of formations from well logs
• well hydraulics and application of geophysical methods for groundwater study
• application of bore hole geophysics in ground water, mineral and oil exploration

Unit 10: Radioactive methods

• Radioactive methods of −

  • Prospecting and assaying of mineral (radioactive and non-radioactive) deposits

  • Half-life

  • Decay constant

  • Radioactive equilibrium

  • G M counter

  • Scintillation detector

  • Semiconductor devices

  • Application of radiometric for exploration

  • Assaying and radioactive waste disposal

Unit 11: Basic concepts of forward and inverse problems

• Ill-posedness of inverse problems, condition number, non-uniqueness and stability of solutions

• L1, L2 and LP norms, overdetermined, underdetermined and mixed determined inverse problems

• Quasilinear and non-linear methods including Tikhonov’s regularization method, Singular Value Decomposition, Backus-Gilbert method, simulated annealing, genetic algorithms and artificial neural network

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