BGYCT-131 Physical and Structural Geology

About the Course

The Earth we live on is a unique and the only known planet conducive for sustaining life. It has fascinated the mankind since beginning of the civilisation providing us everything that we require for our livelihood and is therefore called “Mother Earth”. Human beings have always been curious to enquire about its shape, size, extent and position in the space, internal structure, different kinds of features visible on its surface and the processes working on it.

The branch of science dealing with the study of the Earth is known as Geology. In this course BGYCT-131 titled as 'Physical and Structural Geology', we shall introduce Geology and its different aspects. The course comprises four blocks.

The first block General Geology provides an introduction to geology and Earth covering its origin, age and Solar system, internal structure and composition and internal geological processes: seismicity and volcanism.

The second block Earth Surface Processes contains four units. It first introduces you to the exogenic geological processes and then to the geological work of different geological agents such as river, wind, underground water, glaciers and oceans including the landforms developed by them.

The third block Structural Geology comprises five units. First unit introduces you to the basic concepts of structural geology and the next three units discuss different geological structures such as folds, faults, joints and unconformity, respectively. The fifth unit on field geology discusses about the fieldwork and related aspects.

The fourth block Mountain Building and Plate Tectonics comprises three units. The first two units provide an introduction to different theories of mountain building and the orogenic processes. Third unit introduces the concept of plate tectonics, a unifying theory for different geological phenomena.