Why in News:

• Union Minister of State for Science & Technology inaugurated the first open rock museum (in hyderabad) displaying different types of rocks gathered from different states with ages ranging from 3.3 billion years to around 55 million years on the campus of the CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) 

Work done at  NGRI

• • Mapping of groundwater sources in arid regions will help in utilising the groundwater for drinking purposes.
  • Earthquake risk maps of cities for the respective state disaster management agencies. The maps were made by characterising the hazard and its uncertainty to serve as input for risk assessment and earthquake resistant design for buildings and infrastructure like bridges or dams.
  • Revise land use maps with revised hazard components and revised building bylaws to outlaw unsafe and vulnerable typologies of houses.
  • Early warning systems for the Himalayan region
  • 3-D aquifer map 
  • The institute’s future research efforts are  designed for ‘Deep-Earth’ and ‘Near Surface’ explorations that are critical to understand the processes responsible for shaping the earth’s structure, dynamics and sustenance of life. 

 Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/rock-museum-inaugurated-on-ngri-campus/article38154659.ece