Introduction to the earth sciences; nature and properties of rocks and minerals; sedimentation and sedimentary enviroments; stratigraphy and the geological time scale; geological maps and structures; introduction to plate tectonics. Nature and geological properties of petroleum; petroleum generation, migration, entrapment and degradation; sedimentology of petroleum-bearing sequences; primary and secondary porosity; structural and stratigraphic traps; formation waters; coal-bed methane, oil shale and other non-conventional petroleum sources; geological and geophysical methods in petroleum exploration and development; regional geology of selected petroleum basins.