Geological Survey of Pakistan - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) is Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

's central engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

agency in charge of mapping

Map

A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....

and surveying

Surveying

See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...

. It was established in 1947 in Quetta

Quetta

is the largest city and the provincial capital of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan. Known as the "Fruit Garden of Pakistan" due to the diversity of its plant and animal wildlife, Quetta is home to the Hazarganji Chiltan National Park, which contains some of the rarest species of wildlife in the...

, Balochistan

Balochistan (Pakistan)

Balochistan is one of the four provinces or federating units of Pakistan. With an area of 134,051 mi2 or , it is the largest province of Pakistan, constituting approximately 44% of the total land mass of Pakistan. According to the 1998 population census, Balochistan had a population of...

, is one of the research institutes of Pakistan

Pakistan

. It is the organizational successor to the UK Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...

in that part of the world. The GSP's mission is to develop, interpret and provide geological information about the country that may lead to the prudent management of its natural resources and contribute to the development. According to its charter http://www.gsp.gov.pk/about/charter.html, GSP "is responsible for the study of geology of the country in all pertinent details and to assess its resource potential."

History

GSP has the unique honour of being the only research organization, which came into being with the creation of Pakistan on August 14, 1947. It was then manned by 5 geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

s and one chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

and had no laboratory

Laboratory

A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...

facility to provide technical support to field operations. Over the period of last 5 decades its personnel strength has steadily grown. It now has a work force of about 1290 employees, which includes about 150 geologists.

The expansion in the size of the Department has been generally accompanied the creation and modernization of some of the needed laboratory and ancillary facilities. This growth has, in fact, corresponded with a visible shift in operational strategy and exploration priorities. The earlier quarter-inch mapping of reconnaissance nature on topo-base has been replaced by the internationally practical 1:50,000 scale systematic regional geological mapping using aerial photographs and satellite imagery. The change is more profoundly noticeable in the field of mineral exploration. From the early days of spot checks of reported mineral occurrences, the GSP is now undertaking integrated scientific exploration of well-defined mineral targets in geological environments, which are considered favourable for mineralization on the basis of conceptual modeling.

In its formative years the GSP also did the pioneering work in fields of hydrogeology

Hydrogeology

Hydrogeology is the area of geology that deals with the distribution and movement of groundwater in the soil and rocks of the Earth's crust, . The term geohydrology is often used interchangeably...

and engineering geology but gradually this work was overtaken by other agencies. However, in the process the geological base of these studies could not be suitably strengthened and thus the desired results were not forthcoming. Consequently, the government has now again allowed GSP to carry out hydrogeological and environmental geology studies from the year 1998-99.

On the eve of the start of the 21st century and the next millennium, a paradigm shift in the GSP's technical programme has been initiated which will profoundly affect the quality and complexion, direction and orientation, and quantum and output of its research and exploration. It will now address more directly the societal needs of geoscience information for a rapidly changing world of conflicting demands on resources and the environment.

History

See also