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Reflections on geophysics in India

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, India

Corresponding author: geopic@giasdl01.vsni.net.in

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The earliest use of geophysics in India can be traced to Colonel William Lambton, who suggested a survey in 1799 which ultimately result-ed in a geodetic network to study the earth's ellipticity. The study of the earth's magnetism began in 1826, and a geomagnetic observatory (only the second in the world) was built in Mumbai in 1847. It was shifted to Alibagh in 1904.

India provided some early and valuable data supporting the concept of isostasy through the work of Archdeacon Pratt in 1852. The earliest published work in seismology was T. Oldham's 1888 Catalogue of Indian Earthquakes from Earliest Time to the End of 1869. The first seismograph was installed at Mumbai in 1898.

The first geophysical survey dedicated to oil exploration was a 1923 torsion- balance investigation of the Indus River Valley by Burmah Oil Company. The first geoelectrical survey by an Indian scientist (M. B. Ramchandra Rao) was conducted in Mysore in 1937–38 in an attempt to locate sulphide ores and graphite deposits.

Postgraduate courses in geophysics were started at Andhra and Banaras Hindu Universities in 1949. The Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) and the Indian School of Mines (Dhanbad) added such courses in 1952 and 1957, respectively. Several other universities have now also added postgraduate courses in geophysics.

Petroleum exploration in India is more than 100 years old, but the prevailing impression was that the country did not have large petroleum reserves and the pace was low. The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) was established in 1956 to accelerate E&P activity in India's 26 sedimentary basins.

ONGC began seismic data acquisition in 1957 with a contract crew from the Soviet Union. ONGC's first well was drilled in 1958 at Jwalamuki in the Himalayan foothills and found a . . . [Full Text of this Article]