Geology and Geophysics Quiz

Geology and Geophysics

• Earth and planetary system: Study of terrestrial planets, moons, size, shape, internal structure (composition), isostasy, seismology (body and surface waves), heat flow, gravitational and magnetic fields, continental drift, plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanism, mountain building, oceanic and continental crust composition and thickness.

• Weathering and soil formation: Landforms created by rivers, wind, glaciers, oceans, and volcanoes.

• Basic structural geology: Stress, strain, material response, brittle and ductile deformation, nomenclature, and classification of folds and faults.

• Crystallography and Mineralogy: Crystal symmetry, point groups, silicate crystal structure, determinative mineralogy of common rock-forming minerals, physical and optical properties of rock-forming minerals, crystallographic projection.

• Geochemistry: Distribution of major, minor, and trace elements in the crust and mantle, geochemical evolution, isotopic evolution of the crust and the mantle, geochemistry of water, water-rock interactions, cosmic abundance of elements, meteorites.

• Igneous Petrology: Classification, forms, textures, and genesis of common igneous rocks, magmatic differentiation, binary and ternary phase diagrams, major and trace elements, mantle plumes, hotspots, and large igneous provinces.

• Sedimentology: Texture, structure, sedimentary processes, petrology of sedimentary rocks, sedimentary facies and environments, cyclicities, provencance, basin analysis, important sedimentary basins of India.

• Metamorphic Petrology: Structures and textures of metamorphic rocks, physico-chemical conditions of metamorphism, concept of metamorphic facies, grade, baric types, chemographic projections, metamorphic rocks (pelitic, mafic, impure carbonate rocks), P-T-t paths.

• Paleobiology: Diversity of life through time, mass extinctions, taphonomy (fossilization processes), taxonomy, morphology, functional morphology of invertebrates, vertebrate paleontology, basic concepts of ecology/paleoecology, classifications.

• Stratigraphy: Principles of stratigraphy and concepts of correlation, lithosttratigraphy, biostratigraphy, chronostratigraphy, principles of sequence stratigraphy, stratigraphy of Peninsular and extra-Peninsular India, boundary problems in Indian stratigraphy.

• Resource Geology: Ore-mineralogy, ore-forming processes, fluid inclusions, coal and petroleum geology, marine mineral resources, prospecting, exploration of economic mineral deposits, distribution of mineral, fossil, and nuclear fuels 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, rock mass classifications, geological factors in construction, analysis of slope stability, natural hazards (landslides, volcanic, seismogenic, coastal) and mitigation, principles of climate change.

• Hydrogeology: Groundwater flow and exploration, well hydraulics, water quality.

• Basic Principles of Remote Sensing: Energy sources, radiation principles, atmospheric absorption, interaction of energy with earth's surface, aerial-photo interpretation, multispectral remote sensing.

Geophysics

• Solid-Earth Geophysics: Earth as a planet, motions, gravity field, geomagnetic field, paleomagnetism, geothermics, heat flow, seismology, interior of the earth, 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, leveling and surveying.

• Earthquake Seismology: Elasticity theory, stress and strain tensors, body and surface waves, reflection and refraction, magnitude and intensity, focal mechanisms, seismic hazards, digital seismographs, seismotectonics, seismic tomography.

• Potential and Time Varying Fields: Scalar and vector potential fields, Laplace, Maxwell, and Helmholtz equations, cylindrical and spherical polar coordinates, Green's theorem, image theory, integral equations.

• Gravity Methods: Absolute relative gravity measurements , gravimeters, corrections for gravity data reduction, free air, Bouguer and isostatic anomalies, density estimates.

• Magnetic Methods: Earth’s magnetic field, magnetic susceptibility, magnetometers, IGRF, magnetic anomalies, depth rules, processing of magnetic data.

• Electrical Methods: Electrical conductivity of rocks, electrical resistivity measurement, profiling, sounding curves, electrode arrangements, self-potential method, IP method, resistivity tomography, environmental/engineering applications.

• Electromagnetic Methods: Geo-electromagnetic spectrum, Maxwell's equations, EM induction, polarization, configuration of EM surveys, tellurics, ground penetrating radar (GPR).

• Seismic Methods: Elastic properties , reflection, refraction, seismic waves, velocity, depth models, geophones, hydrophones, digital recording systems, seismic noise, noise cancellation, 3D and 4D seismic data acquisition.

Reservoir Geophysics

• Rock Physics and Petrophysics, Geophysical Survey Design, Geophysical Signal Processing, sampling theorem, Nyquist frequency, Fourier series, Fourier and Hilbert transform, z transform, wavelet transform, principles, of digital filters.
• Geophysical Well Logging (SP, resistivity, induction, gamma ray, neutron, density, sonic, temperature, dip meter, caliper, nuclear magnetic resonance)
• Radiometric Methods: Radioactive deposits, half-life, decay constant, radioactive equilibrium, GM counters, scintillation detectors, semiconductor devices.
• Geophysical Inversion; Basic concepts of inverse problems, ill-posedness, condition number, regularization methods, singular value decomposition, backus gilbert method, ambiguity and uncertainty.