The Geological Survey of India (GSI) is a scientific agency of India. It was founded in 1851, as a

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

organization under the Ministry of Mines, one of the oldest of such organisations in the world and the second oldest survey in India after the

Survey of India The Survey of India is India's central engineering agency in charge of mapping and surveying.geological Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth s ...

surveys and studies of India, and also as the prime provider of basic earth science information to government, industry and general public, as well as the official participant in steel, coal, metals, cement, power industries and international geoscientific forums.

History

Formed in 1851 by the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

, the organization's roots can be traced to 1836 when the "Coal Committee", followed by more such committees, was formed to study and explore the availability of coal in the eastern parts of India. David Hiram Williams, one of the first surveyors for the

British Geological Survey The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance Earth science, geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. ...

, was appointed 'Surveyor of coal districts and superintendent of coal works, Bengal' on 3 December 1845 and arrived in India the following February. The phrase "Geological Survey of India" was first used on his Dec 1847 map of the Damoodah and Adji Great Coal Field,Damoodah and Adji Great Coal Field Map
, Bavarian State Library. together with HorizontalGSI Map of horizontal sections 1 & 2
, Bavarian State Library.GSI Map of horizontal sections 3 & 4
, Bavarian State Library. and Vertical sections of the map.GSI Map of vertical section 5
, Bavarian State Library. On 4 February 1848, he was appointed the "Geological Surveyor of the Geological Survey of India", but he fell off his elephant and, soon after, died with his assistant, F. B. Jones, of 'jungle fever' on 15 November 1848,''Allen's Indian Mail'', Vol VII, No 117 London, 22 January 1849, p41. after which John McClelland took over as the "Officiating Surveyor" until his retirement on 5 March 1851. Until 1852, Geological Survey primarily remained focused on exploration for coal, mainly for powering steam transport, oil reserves, and ore deposits, when Sir Thomas Oldham, father of

Richard Dixon Oldham Richard Dixon Oldham FRS (; 31 July 1858 – 15 July 1936) was a British geologist who made the first clear identification of the separate arrivals of P-waves, S-waves and surface waves on seismograms and the first clear evidence that ...

, broadened the ambit of the scope of functioning of the Geological Survey of India by advancing the argument with the government that it was not possible to find coal without first mapping the geology of India. Thus, the Geological Survey commenced to map the rock types, geological structures and relative ages of different rock types . The age of rock strata was estimated from the presence of

index fossil Biostratigraphy is the branch of stratigraphy which focuses on correlating and assigning relative ages of rock strata by using the fossil assemblages contained within them.Hine, Robert. "Biostratigraphy." ''Oxford Reference: Dictionary of Biology ...

s, which consumed much of the geologists' efforts in finding these index fossils, as the method of

Radiometric dating Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to Chronological dating, date materials such as Rock (geology), rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurity, impurities were selectively incorporat ...

for estimating the age of rock strata was not developed at that time. In 1869 Frederick Richard Mallet was first to visit Ramgarh crater. Mallet, F. R., 1869, Memoir, Geological Survey of India, vol 7, page 129.BALASUNDARAM, M., DUBE, A. Ramgarh, 1973, "Structure, India",

Nature (journal) ''Nature'' is a British weekly scientific journal founded and based in London, England. As a multidisciplinary publication, ''Nature'' features Peer review, peer-reviewed research from a variety of academic disciplines, mainly in science and t ...

, 242, 40 doi:10.1038/242040a0. Later studies include by those of Arthur Lennox Coulson. This company was very last which started looting India's wealth, in the form of gold, power, money, etc.. In 19th century GSI undertook several surveys including

Great Trigonometrical Survey The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India was a project that aimed to carry out a survey across the Indian subcontinent with scientific precision. It was begun in 1802 by the British infantry officer William Lambton, under the auspices of t ...

, 1869 Kailash- Mansarovar expedition, 1871-1872 Shigache–

Lhasa Lhasa, officially the Chengguan District of Lhasa City, is the inner urban district of Lhasa (city), Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwestern China. Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining ...

expedition, 1873-1874

Yarkand Yarkant County,, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency also Shache County,, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency also SASM/GNC ro ...

–

Kashgar Kashgar () or Kashi ( zh, c=喀什) is a city in the Tarim Basin region of southern Xinjiang, China. It is one of the westernmost cities of China, located near the country's border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. For over 2,000 years, Kashgar ...

expedition, second expedition of this area by Sir Thomas Douglas Forsyth, 1878-1882

Darjeeling Darjeeling (, , ) is a city in the northernmost region of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of West Bengal. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it has an average elevation of . To the west of Darjeeling lies the Koshi Pr ...

–

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

expedition, etc.Clements R. Markham, 1878, "A Memoir on The Indian Surveys", 2nd Ed., W H Allen & Co., London, p.189.Charles E. D. Black, 1891, "A Memoir on The Indian Surveys (1875-90)", London, p.168.Derek J. Waller, 2004, "The Pundits: British Exploration of Tibet and Central Asia," University Press of Kentucky.Account of the Pundit's Journey in Great Tibet - Capt. H. Trotter, The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1877). The native surveyors were called

pandit A pandit (; ; also spelled pundit, pronounced ; abbreviated Pt. or Pdt.) is an individual with specialised knowledge or a teacher of any field of knowledge in Hinduism, particularly the Vedic scriptures, dharma, or Hindu philosophy; in colonial-e ...

, some notable ones include cousins Nain Singh Rawat and Krishna Singh Rawat.Peter Hopkirk, 1982, "Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa",

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

Press. In 19th and early 20th century GSI made important contributions to

seismology Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...

by its studies and detailed reports on numerous Indian earthquakes.

, like his father also worked for GSI, first correctly identified p- and s-waves, and hypothesised and calculated the diameter of the Earth's core. On 8 April 2017 GSI began pilot project, with the first ever aerial survey of mineral stocks by GSI, to map the mineral stocks up to a depth of 20 km using specially-equipped aircraft. The GSI was restructured into 5 Missions, respectively relating to "Baseline Surveys";"Mineral resource Assessments";"Geoinformatics";"Multi-disciplinary Geosciences"; and "Training and Capacity Building", on the basis of the Report of a High-level Committee chaired by Mr S.Vijay Kumar Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Mines of the Government of India. The GSI ordered two coastal reserch vessels from

GRSE Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd, abbreviated as GRSE, is one of India's leading Defense industry, defence shipyards, located in Kolkata. It builds and repairs merchant shipping, commercial and warship, naval vessels. GRSE also expor ...

in 2025.

The superintendents and directors

References

External links

* {{Authority control Geography of India National geological agencies Geology of India Geological surveys Organisations based in Kolkata Historical geography of India Executive branch of the government of India Organizations established in 1851 1851 establishments in India 1851 establishments in British India Ministry of Mines (India)

History

The superintendents and directors

See also

References

External links