Alok Dave
Professor Emeritus
Earth and Climate Science
Sedimentology, Sequence and Seismic Stratigraphy, Paleontology and Hydrocarbon exploration
alok@iiserpune.ac.in
Alok Dave earned his Master’s (1977) and Ph.D. in Geology (1982) from Banaras Hindu University. Prior to joining IISER Pune, he worked as a Geologist with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (1983-2018) and retired as Executive Director from Mumbai in November, 2018.
Research
Alok Dave specializes in micropalaeontology, carbonate sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy. Dr. Dave has carried out geoscientific studies of Indian petroliferous basins for 35 years and retired as Executive Director in 2018. In the early 1990s, he was involved with establishing lithostratigraphic classification of Indian petroliferous basins. He standardized core analysis techniques for implementation across all work centres of ONGC and was involved with the discovery of Dinosaur graveyard in Kutch. Dr. Dave authored books on Mesozoic Chrono-stratigraphy of Kachchh and Lexicon of Indian Stratigraphy. He served as chief editor of ONGC Bulletin beside editing Proceedings of XV Indian Colloquium on Micropaleontology and Stratigraphy, Seminar on Indian Petroliferous Basins (3 volumes), and Standard Laboratory Techniques for Geological Studies. He has successfully carried out collaborative projects with international oil companies like British Petroleum and Turkish Petroleum at their work centres. His recent work on Petroleum system modelling of Kutch-Saurashtra basin has established hydrocarbon resource base for future commercial production. Since 2005, he was actively associated with the sequence stratigraphic studies of the basins of western continental margin, including petroleum system modelling. He also successfully completed advanced Management course from IIM, Bangalore and Europe.
Selected Publications
G. Keller, P. K. Bhowmick, H. Upadhyay, A. Dave, A. N. Reddy, B. C. Jaiprakash & T. Adatte (2011): Deccan volcanism linked to the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary mass extinction: New evidence from ONGC wells in the Krishna-Godavari Basin, Journal of the Geological Society of India, 78, pages 399–428.
G. Keller, T. Adatte, P.K. Bhowmick, H. Upadhyay, A. Dave, A.N. Reddy, B.C. Jaiprakash (2012): Nature and timing of extinctions in Cretaceous-Tertiary planktic foraminifera preserved in Deccan intertrappean sediments of the Krishna-Godavari Basin, India, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 341–344, pp. 211-221.
O. Catuneanu and A. Dave (2017): Cenozoic sequence stratigraphy of the Kachchh Basin, India. Mar. Petrol. Geol., 86, pp. 1106-1132.