NDA (II) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 62 of 150

Correct — C, Himalayan mountain region. Kalakot, spelt Kalakote on the map, is a tehsil in Rajouri district in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, on the outer slopes of the Pir Panjal — that is, in the Himalayan mountain region. It is the best-known of the small coal occurrences of the Jammu belt, and the coal is Tertiary rather than Gondwana in age, which is what the stem means by calling it a tertiary coal field. Its coal was the reason a thermal power station was built there in the early 1950s, described locally as the first thermal power plant in north India, though the plant was later closed because the coal proved unsuitable for it.

• (a)Brahmaputra river basin of Assam — Assam does have Tertiary coal, in the Makum and Dilli-Jeypore fields of upper Assam, so the geological age fits. But Kalakot is not there — it is nearly two thousand kilometres to the west, in Jammu.
• (b)Damodar river basin of Jharkhand and West Bengal — The Damodar valley holds Jharia, Raniganj, Bokaro and Karanpura, India's coal heartland — but that coal is Gondwana in age, not Tertiary. The word 'tertiary' in the stem is itself a signal to look away from the Damodar.
• (d)Cardamom hills in Kerala — The Cardamom Hills are a spur of the Western Ghats on the Kerala and Tamil Nadu border, a plantation country of spices and coffee. Kerala has no coal field of any consequence.

Indian coal falls into two families of very different age. The Gondwana coals, laid down roughly 250 million years ago, hold the overwhelming bulk of the country's reserves and sit in the river valleys of the peninsula — Damodar, Son, Mahanadi, Godavari and Wardha. The Tertiary coals, tens of millions of years younger, are confined to the north-east, mainly Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, and to a few small pockets along the Himalaya including the Jammu belt around Kalakot. Tertiary coal tends to carry more sulphur and to occur in thinner, more broken seams.

Two words in the stem do the work. 'Tertiary' rules out the Damodar valley, and the place name has to be attached to Jammu. If the geology is remembered but the name is not, the question narrows to a choice between Assam and the Himalaya and becomes a coin toss — so learn Kalakot as a place first and its age second. It is worth noting that this is a small field of local importance, quite unlike the Damodar valley coalfields that supply India's steel and power industries.

• Kalakot lies in Rajouri district of the Jammu region, on the outer Himalayan slopes of the Pir Panjal.
• Its coal is of Tertiary age, unlike the Gondwana coal of the peninsular basins.
• A thermal power station was set up at Kalakot in the early 1950s because of the local coal.
• India's Tertiary coal is otherwise concentrated in Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.
• Gondwana coalfields of the Damodar, Son, Mahanadi and Godavari valleys hold the great bulk of Indian reserves.

• Answering 'Damodar valley' for any Indian coal question without reading the word 'tertiary'.
• Placing Kalakot in Assam because Assam is the best-known home of Tertiary coal.
• Assuming a coalfield with its own power station must be a large producer.

NDA asks mineral-to-place matching, often with the geological age planted in the stem as the hint that separates two otherwise plausible regions.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Coal of the Damodar valley coalfields belongs to which geological system?

  • (a)Gondwana
  • (b)Tertiary
  • (c)Quaternary
  • (d)Archaean

  Answer(a) Gondwana — the peninsular coalfields hold Gondwana coal, about 250 million years old, and account for most of India's reserves.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Makum coalfield lies in

  • (a)Assam
  • (b)Odisha
  • (c)Chhattisgarh
  • (d)Kerala

  Answer(a) Assam — in the upper Assam belt, one of India's principal Tertiary coal occurrences.