Part-A: Common Section | Earth and Planetary System | Terrestrial planets and moons of the solar system; Size, shape, internal structure, and composition of the Earth; Concept of isostasy; Elements of seismology – body and surface waves, propagation of body waves in the Earth’s interior; Heat flow within the Earth; Gravitational field of the Earth; Geomagnetism and paleomagnetism; Continental drift; Plate tectonics – relationship with earthquakes, volcanism, and mountain building; Continental and oceanic crust – composition, structure, and thickness. |
Weathering and Soil Formation | Landforms created by rivers, wind, glaciers, oceans, and volcanoes. |
Basic Structural Geology | Stress, strain, and 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 | Petrology of common igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. |
Geological Time Scale | Geochronology and absolute time. |
Stratigraphy | Stratigraphic principles; Major stratigraphic divisions of India. |
Resource Geology | Mineral, coal, and petroleum resources of India. |
Remote Sensing | Introduction to remote sensing. |
Engineering Geology | Engineering properties of rocks and soils. |
Hydrogeology | Elements of hydrogeology. |
Geophysical Methods | Principles and applications of gravity, magnetic, electrical, electromagnetic, seismic, and radiometric methods of prospecting for oil, mineral, and groundwater; Introductory well logging. |
Part-B (B1): Geology | Geomorphology | Geomorphic processes and agents; Development and evolution of landforms in continental and oceanic settings; Tectonic geomorphology. |
Structural Geology | Forces and mechanism of rock deformation; Primary and secondary structures; Geometry and genesis of planar and linear structures (bedding, cleavage, schistosity, lineation); Folds, faults, joints, and unconformities; Stereographic projection; Shear zones, thrusts, and superposed folding; Basement-cover relationship; Interpretation of geological maps. |
Crystallography and Mineralogy | Elements of crystal symmetry, form, and twinning; Crystallographic projection; Crystal chemistry; Classification of minerals, physical and optical properties of rock-forming minerals. |
Geochemistry | 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 high-temperature and low-temperature geochemical thermodynamics; Isotopic evolution of the crust and mantle, mantle reservoirs; Geochemistry of water and water-rock interaction. |
Igneous Petrology | Classification, forms, textures, and genesis of common igneous rocks; Magmatic differentiation; Binary and ternary phase diagrams; Major and trace elements as monitors of partial melting and magma evolutionary processes; Mantle plumes, hotspots, and large igneous provinces. |
Sedimentology | Texture, structure, and sedimentary processes; Petrology of common sedimentary rocks; Sedimentary facies and environments, cyclicities in sedimentary succession; Provenance and basin analysis; Important sedimentary basins of India. |
Metamorphic Petrology | Structures and textures of metamorphic rocks; Physico-chemical conditions of metamorphism and concept of metamorphic facies, grade, and baric types; Chemographic projections; Metamorphism of pelitic, mafic, and impure carbonate rocks; Role of bulk composition including fluids in metamorphism; Thermobarometry and metamorphic P-T-t paths, and their tectonic significance. |
Paleobiology | Diversity of life through time, mass extinctions- causes and effects; Taphonomy - processes of fossilization; Taxonomy; Morphology and functional morphology of invertebrates (bivalves, brachiopods, gastropods, echinoids, ammonites); Microfossils (foraminifera, ostracoda, conodonts, bryozoa); Vertebrate paleontology (Equus, Proboscidea, Human); Paleobotany (plant, spores, pollens); Basic concepts of ecology/paleoecology; Classification - ecological and taxonomic schemes (diversity and richness); Fossils and paleoenvironments. |
Stratigraphy | Principles of stratigraphy and concepts of correlation; Lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and chronostratigraphy; Principles of sequence stratigraphy and applications; Stratigraphy of peninsular and extra-peninsular India; Boundary problems in Indian stratigraphy. |
Resource Geology | Ore-mineralogy; Ore forming processes vis-à-vis ore-rock association (magmatic, hydrothermal, sedimentary, supergene, and meta morphogenic ores); Fluid inclusions as ore genetic tools; 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; Distribution of mineral, fossil, and nuclear fuel deposits in India. |
Global Tectonics | Plate motions, driving mechanisms, plate boundaries, supercontinent cycles. |
Applied Geology | Physico-mechanical properties of rocks and soils; Rock index tests; Rock failure criteria (Mohr-Coulomb, Griffith, and Hoek-Brown criteria); Shear strength of rock discontinuities; Rock mass classifications (RMR and Q Systems); In-situ stresses; Rocks as construction materials; Geological factors in the construction of engineering structures including dams, tunnels, and excavation sites; Analysis of slope stability. |
Natural Hazards | Landslide, volcanic, seismogenic, coastal hazards, and mitigation; Principles of climate change. |
Hydrogeology | Groundwater flow and exploration, well hydraulics, and water quality. |
Remote Sensing | 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. |
Part-B (B2): Geophysics | Solid-Earth Geophysics | 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. |
Geodesy | Gravitational Field of the Earth; Geoid; Ellipsoid; Geodetic Reference Systems; Datum; Everest (1830) and WGS 84 (1984) systems; GPS and DGPS; Levelling and Surveying. |
Earthquake Seismology | Elements of elasticity theory- stress and strain tensors, Generalized Hooke’s Law; Body and Surface Waves; Rotational, dilatational, irrotational, and equivolumnal waves; Reflection and refraction of elastic waves; Inhomogeneous and evanescent waves and bounded waves; Eikonal Equation and Ray theory; Earthquakes-causes and measurements, magnitude, and intensity, focal mechanisms; Earthquake quantification, source characteristics, seismotectonics, and seismic hazards; Digital seismographs, Earthquake statistics, wave propagation in elastic media, quantifying earthquake source from seismological data; Elements of Seismic Tomography. |
Potential and Time Varying Fields | 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 and time-varying field theory. |
Gravity Methods | Absolute and relative gravity measurements; Gravimeters; Land, airborne, shipborne, and bore-hole gravity surveys; Tensorial Gravity sensors and 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. |
Magnetic Methods | Elements of Earth’s magnetic field, units of measurement, magnetic susceptibility of rocks and measurements, magnetometers and magnetic gradiometers; Land, airborne, and marine magnetic and magnetic gradiometer 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 due to geometrical and irregular shaped bodies; Image processing concepts in processing of magnetic anomaly maps; Depth rules; Interpretation of processed magnetic anomaly data; Derivative, analytic signal, and Euler Depth Solutions; Applications of gravity and magnetic methods for mineral and oil exploration. |
Electrical Methods | Conduction of electricity through rocks, electrical conductivities of metals, non-metals, rock-forming minerals and different rocks; Concepts of Maxwell’s equations and constitutive relations; Effects of temperature and pressure on the electrical properties of rocks; Basic principles of electrical resistivity prospecting; Geometrical factor, apparent resistivity, theory of DC resistivity methods, configurations used in resistivity profiling and sounding, Vertical Electrical Sounding, self-potential (SP) method, determination of depth of burial, and estimation of the width of the anomalous body; Field surveys, and interpretation; Resistivity of ionic solutions; Electrical Analog modeling; Basic principles of electromagnetic (EM) induction, Maxwell’s equations, constitutive relations, EM properties of rocks, magnetic vector potential, wave equations, dispersion relations, EM waves in half-space; Skin depth and Fresnel’s zone; Basic principles of Electromagnetic induction prospecting, VLF, EM profiling, EM sounding, Time Domain EM method, Ground Penetrating Radar, Field surveys, and interpretation. |
Seismic Methods | Seismic instruments, seismometer, geophone, and hydrophone, principles of signal processing, 1D, 2D, 3D, and 4D seismic surveys, Common Depth Point (CDP) survey, Roll-along method, principle of Digital signal processing, Fourier Transform, digital filtering, correlation, convolution, and deconvolution, Velocity Analysis, Stacking, Interpretation of Seismic reflection and refraction data. |
Well Logging | Basic principles of well logging, different types of logging techniques and their applications (SP, resistivity, porosity, nuclear, sonic, temperature, etc.), Multi-tool logging and their applications. |
Mathematical Methods | Vector algebra and calculus, linear algebra, Fourier analysis, Laplace, and Z transforms, finite difference and finite element methods. |
Nuclear Physics | Basic Principles of nuclear physics, nuclear moments, nuclear models, nuclear decay, and radiation; Radioactivity; Nuclear reactions, nuclear energy; Interaction of nuclear particles with matter; Radiation detectors. |
Electromagnetic Theory | Maxwell’s equations; EM wave propagation in a conducting medium; Plane wave reflection from the surface of a conducting medium; Reflection and transmission coefficients; Diffusion of EM fields in a conducting medium; Propagation of EM fields in thin sheets and stratified media; Waveguides; Group and Phase Velocities, Dispersion Relations, and Attenuation; Magnetotellurics; Introduction to Electromagnetic Scattering and Radar Cross Section (RCS). |
