The Structural Geology & Tectonic Studies Group – India (SGTSGI), which is a part of the IUGS Commission on Tectonics & Structural Geology (TecTask), organizes “Rock Deformation & Structures” (RDS) series of conference once every two years. The third conference in this series (RDS-III) was held at the Department of Applied Geology, Dibrugarh University (Assam) from 29-31 October 2014. The convenors were Tapos Kumar Goswami and Ranjan Kumar Sarmah (both from Dibrugarh University, Assam), and Dilip Kumar Mukhopadhyay (Department of Earth Sciences, IIT Roorkee). The conference was financially supported by Department of Science and Technology (DST), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC), National Hydroelectric Power Corporation Ltd (NHPC), Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL), and Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
The abstract volume of RDS-III comprised 110 papers, and 130 earth scientists from all over India involved in a variety of structural and tectonic studies attended the conference. 25 oral and 68 poster presentations were made during the first two days on three themes: (1) Tectonics of northeast India with a special emphasis on hydrocarbon exploration, (2) Kinematic and dynamic analysis of structures in rocks and (3) Applied aspects of structural geology: geotechnical engineering and mineral exploration. The presentations dealt with a variety of topics. Amongst others were included (a) hydrocarbon prospects and its relation to structural geology (b) earthquakes in NE India and resulting changes in Coulomb stress (c) time-relationship between deformation, vein formation and regional tectonics (d) development of shear zones (e) microstructures, kinematics, inverted metamorphism and thrusting in Himalaya (f) role of muscovite on LPO of quartz in micaceous quartzites using EBSD data (g) deep crustal flow patterns and their manifestation in first-order topography of Himalayan Mountain Belt (h) importance of structural geology in tunneling, analysis of rock slope stability and applied geo-technical aspects. On the last day, a training programme (workshop) on “Construction of balanced cross sections and structural profiles in deformed terrains” was held in which 67 scientists participated.
A large number of doctoral students/ young researchers participated in RDS-III. Discussions after every oral presentation were long and detailed. The poster sessions were vibrant, and allowed interaction between earth scientists using a variety of methods in their structural geology research – field, microstructures, numerical modeling, CSD, EBSD, AMS, experimental (analogue), fractals etc. Thus RDS-III fulfilled the primary objective of SGTSGI, which is to provide a forum to structural geologists within India to meet, interact and discuss academically. With a focus on applied aspects of structural geology during RDS-III, there was also good involvement from industry side with 17 geoscientists participating from different companies (Oil India Ltd., ONGC, NHPC, and Hindustan Zinc Ltd.). It is hoped that these interactions will provide an opportunity for greater industry-academia cooperation.
At the end of RDS-III it was decided that the next conference in this series (RDS-IV) will be held in 2016 at the Department of Geology, Kumaun University, Nainital (Uttarakhand).
