GATE Geology and Geophysics Syllabus 2027: Download PDF, Section-wise Topics

Particular

Details

Exam Name

GATE GG 2027 (Geology and Geophysics)

Conducting Body

IIT Madras

Paper Code

GG

Total Sections

3

Major Subjects

Common Section, Advanced Topics in Geology, Advanced Topics in Geophysics

Topic

Official Topics

Introduction to Earth and planetary systems

Terrestrial planets and moons of the solar system; Concept of isostasy, Internal structure of Earth – elasticity, body and surface waves, propagation of body waves in the Earth’s interior; Heat flow within the Earth; Gravitational field of the Earth; Continental and oceanic crust – composition, structure and thickness.

Plate Tectonics

Type of plate boundaries; Plate motions and driving mechanisms; Processes at plate boundaries - volcanism, seismicity, orogenesis, sea-floor spreading and magnetic anomalies and paleomagnetism, formation of back-arc basins; Continental rifting, mantle plumes, hotspots; Numerical problems related to plate motions.

Earth surface processes

Landforms created by hillslopes, rivers, wind, glaciers, oceans, and volcanoes.

Basic structural geology

Mohr’s circle, stress, strain, and material response; Brittle and ductile deformation; Nomenclature and classification of folds and faults.

Mineralogy

Silicate crystal structure, physical and chemical properties of common rock-forming minerals.

Common Igneous, Sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks

Composition, structure, and formation processes.

Stratigraphy and Geological time scale

Relative and absolute time, Half-life, decay constant, radioactive equilibrium, stratigraphic principles, and major stratigraphic divisions of India; Major metallic ores, coal and petroleum resources of India.

Introduction to remote sensing

Energy sources and radiation principles, atmospheric absorption, interaction of energy with Earth’s surface; Engineering properties of rocks and soils; Natural hazards (landslide, volcanic, seismogenic, coastal) and mitigation; Principles of climate change.

Elements of hydrogeology

Principles and applications of gravity, magnetic, electrical, electromagnetic, seismic, and radiometric methods of prospecting for oil, mineral, and groundwater.

Topic

Official Topics

Geomorphology

Basic geomorphic concepts, Geomorphic processes, and agents; Development and evolution of landforms in continental and oceanic settings; Landscape evolution in response to tectonics, climate, and base-level change. Quaternary geomorphology.

Structural Geology

Stress and strain analysis, deformation mechanisms, primary and secondary structures; Geometry and genesis of planar and linear structures (bedding, cleavage, schistosity, lineation); Folds, faults, joints, and unconformities; Shear zones, thrusts, and superposed folding; Geological maps-interpretation, measurements, and numerical analysis; Stereographic projection.

Crystallography and Mineralogy

Elements of crystal symmetry, form, and twinning; Crystallographic projections; Classification of minerals, physical and optical properties of rock-forming minerals; Mineral nucleation; Mineral chemistry (major, trace, and rare earth elements), cation re-calculations.

Geochemistry

Nucleosynthesis and cosmic abundance of elements; Classification and components of meteorites; Geochemical affinities and distribution of major, minor and trace elements in crust, mantle, and core; Planetary differentiation and geochemical evolution of the earth; Radiogenic (long-lived) isotopic evolution (Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd, U-Th-Pb) of the crust and the mantle, mantle reservoirs; Stable isotope geochemistry (H, O, C), isotope fractionation; geochemical cycles; Elements of high-temperature and low-temperature geochemical thermodynamics; Geochemical and isotopic (C-O, Sr isotopes) composition of river water, groundwater and seawater, residence time, and water-rock interaction; Principles of environmental geochemistry (pH, Salinity, TDS, BOD, COD).

Igneous Petrology

Classification and textures of common igneous rocks; Mantle melting; Magmatic differentiation; Role of major, trace, and rare earth elements in igneous petrogenesis; Magma evolution, modeling crystallization and melting processes, plate margin volcanism; Intra-plate volcanism and large igneous provinces.

Thermodynamics

Equilibrium, Gibbs free energy; enthalpy, entropy, energy, Clapeyron Equation, Mineral stability and Phase equilibria, Schreinmakers rules; Phase rule; Phase diagrams, Activity-composition; Mineral solid solutions; Enthalpy and entropy of magma crystallization, Binary and ternary phase diagrams in igneous systems; Chemical speciation and equilibrium in natural waters, solubility and precipitation of minerals - saturation index calculations, Eh-pH diagrams and redox equilibria.

Sedimentology

Texture, structure, sedimentary processes, physical principles related to fluid flow; Statistical analysis in sedimentology; Petrology of common sedimentary rocks; Sedimentary facies and environments, cyclicities in sedimentary succession; Provenance and basin analysis.

Metamorphic Petrology

Structures and textures of metamorphic rocks; Extreme metamorphism; Metamorphic facies and grades; Paired metamorphic belts; Mineral reactions and chemographic projections; Metamorphism of pelitic, mafic and impure carbonate rocks; role of bulk compositions and fluids in metamorphism; Thermobarometry; Timing of metamorphism.

Paleontology

Diversity of life through time, mass extinctions- causes and effects; Taphonomy - processes of fossilization. functional morphology of invertebrates (bivalves, brachiopods, gastropods, echinoids, ammonites) and microfossils - (foraminifera, Ostracoda, conodonts, bryozoa); Statistical analysis of morphology; Vertebrate paleontology. Basic concepts of paleoecology; Fossils and paleoenvironments.

Stratigraphy

Principles of stratigraphy, concepts of correlation and their applications in Indian stratigraphy; Quantitative Lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and chronostratigraphy - statistical and probabilistic approaches; Isotope stratigraphy; Principles of sequence stratigraphy and applications; Boundary problems in Indian stratigraphy.

Resource Geology

Ore-mineralogy; Ore forming processes - magmatic, hydrothermal, sedimentary, supergene, and metamorphogenic ores; Fluid inclusions in ore genesis; Coal and petroleum geology; Marine mineral resources; Prospecting and exploration of economic mineral deposits - sampling, ore reserve estimation, geostatistics, and mining methods; Distribution of strategic, essential, and critical minerals and fossil fuel deposits in India.

Engineering 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; Geological factors in the construction of engineering structures including dams, tunnels, and excavation sites; Analysis of slope stability.

Hydrogeology

Porosity and permeability; Groundwater storage and aquifer properties; Darcy’s law; Hydraulic conductivity and groundwater flow dynamics; Groundwater exploration, well hydraulics.

Remote Sensing

EM spectrum, multispectral remote sensing in visible, infrared, thermal IR and microwave regions including hyperspectral; Digital processing of satellite images. GIS – basic concepts, raster and vector mode operations; Applications of remote sensing tools and techniques in geology.

Topic

Official Topics

Heat flow

Elements of conduction and convection within the mantle and the core, Half-space cooling, calculation of simple geotherms, geothermal gradient, equilibrium geotherms, thermal models in plate tectonics, adiabat, and melting in the mantle.

Geodesy

Gravitational Field of the Earth; Clairaut’s theorem, size and shape of Earth; Geoid; Ellipsoid; Geodetic Reference Systems; Datum; GPS.

Seismology and Interior of the Earth

Variation of density, velocity, pressure, temperature, electrical and magnetic properties of the Earth; Conservation laws, Newton’s law of viscosity, elements of laminar and turbulent flow; Elements of elasticity theory- stress and strain tensors, Generalized Hooke’s Law; Body and Surface Waves; Rotational, dilatational, irrotational, and equivoluminal waves; Reflection and refraction of elastic waves; Inhomogeneous and evanescent waves and bounded waves; Eikonal Equation and Ray theory; Wave propagation in elastic media, Seismic Tomography.

Earthquake Seismology

Earthquakes-causes and measurements, magnitude and intensity, focal mechanisms; Earthquake quantification, source characteristics, seismotectonics and seismic hazards; Digital seismographs, Earthquake statistics, quantifying earthquake source from seismological data; Uniqueness Theorem, Representation Theorems of correlation and convolution type, Reciprocity.

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

The earth as a planet; Absolute and relative gravity measurements; The 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; Upward and downward continuation; Wavelength filtering; Gravity anomalies and their interpretation – anomalies due to geometrical and irregular shaped bodies, depth rules, calculation of mass.

Magnetic Methods

Geomagnetic field, paleomagnetism; Inclination, declination; Magnetic induction equation – convection, diffusion, Ohm’s law for a moving conductor, frozen flux theorem, magnetic fields of planets in the Solar System, Geodynamo and origin of Earth’s Magnetic field, magnetic susceptibility of rocks and measurements; Various corrections applied to magnetic data, IGRF, Poisson’s relation of gravity and magnetic potential field, upward and downward continuation, magnetic anomalies due to geometrical and irregular shaped bodies; Interpretation of processed magnetic anomaly data; Derivative, analytic signal and Euler Depth Solutions.

Electrical Methods

Conduction of electricity through rocks, electrical conductivities of metals, non-metals, rock-forming minerals and different rocks, concepts of D.C. resistivity measurement and depth of investigation; Apparent Resistivity and Apparent Chargeability, Theory of Reciprocity, Sounding and Profiling, Various electrode arrangements, application of linear filter theory, Sounding curves over multi-layered earth, interpretation of resistivity field data, Principles of equivalence and suppression.

Electromagnetic Methods

Geo-electromagnetic spectrum; Biot Savart’s Law; Maxwell’s Equation, Helmholtz Equation, Basic concept of EM induction in the earth, Skin-depth, elliptic polarization, in-phase and quadrature components, phasor diagrams; Response function and response parameters; Measurements in different source receiver configurations; Earth’s natural electromagnetic methods- tellurics, geomagnetic depth sounding and magnetotellurics; Electromagnetic profiling and Sounding, Time domain EM method; EM scale modelling, processing of EM data and interpretation; Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Methods; Effect of conducting overburden.

Seismic Methods

Elastic properties of earth materials; Reflection, refraction, generation, and propagation of elastic waves, velocity – depth models, seismic noise and noise profile analysis, processing, and interpretation; CDP stacking charts, binning, filtering, static and dynamic corrections, Digital seismic data processing, seismic deconvolution and migration methods, attribute analysis, bright and dim spots, seismic stratigraphy, high-resolution seismics, VSP, AVO, multi-component seismics, and seismic interferometry; Kirchhoff migration, Time Reversal, Time-Reversal imaging, Reverse-Time Migration; Representation theorem of cross-correlation and convolution type.

Reservoir Geophysics

Rock Physics and Petrophysics, Failure Criteria, stress concentration, Linear elasticity fracture mechanics, Elastic-Plastic Fracture mechanics; Griffith’s criterion, dynamic fracture mechanics; Lithology and Porosity Estimation; Saturation and Permeability Estimation; application of borehole geophysics in groundwater, mineral, and oil exploration.

Geophysical Signal Processing

Sampling theorem, Nyquist frequency, aliasing, 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, Basics of Time-frequency analysis.

Geophysical Well Logging

Principles and techniques of geophysical well-logging, SP, resistivity, induction, gamma ray, neutron, density, sonic, temperature, dip meter, caliper, nuclear magnetic resonance- longitudinal and transverse relaxation, CPMG sequence, porosity characterization, cement bond logging, micro-logs, Quantitative evaluation of formations from well logs.

Geophysical Inversion

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, quasi-linear and non-linear methods including Tikhonov’s regularization method, Singular Value Decomposition, Backus-Gilbert method, simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, swarm intelligence, Statistics of misfit and likelihood, Random Variables and Processes, Probability distribution functions - Gaussian, Poissonian, log-normal; Spatial analysis, Hypothesis testing; Bayesian construction of posterior probabilities, sparsity promoting L1 optimization; Ambiguity and uncertainty in geophysical interpretation; PDE constrained optimization, Adjoint-state method.

Parameter

Details

Exam Duration

3 Hours

Total Marks

100 Marks

Question Types

MCQs, MSQs & NAT Questions

Negative Marking

Applicable only for MCQs

No Negative Marking

MSQs and NAT Questions

Feature

Details

Course

GATE Preparation Batches

Mode

Live + Recorded Classes

Study Material

Notes, PDFs & Practice Questions