Gerel Ochir was born in Moscow on 17 July 1941. She gained an interest in geology at the age of 10 after her mother gave her a book on geology by Russian geochemist Alexander Fersman. She graduated from secondary school in Ulaanbaatar in 1958.
From 1959, Ochir attended Charles University in Prague. She earned a bachelor's degree in geology and petrography in 1964. She then spent a year with the Department of Geological Survey at the Central Geological Laboratory before she started teaching at the Mongolian State University (now Mongolian University of Science and Technology) in 1965. She later returned to Charles University, earning her RNDr. in geology and geochemistry in 1980. Ochir earned her PhD in petrology from the Irkutsk Institute of Geochemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1978. Her thesis was on the "Petrology and geochemistry of granite with crystal-bearing pegmatites of Eastern Mongolia." Ochir earned her ScD in geochemistry, petrology, and metallogeny from the Vinogradov Institute of Geochemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1990.