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Earth and Planetary Sciences

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Graduate Studies in Earth and Planetary Sciences

The Department of Geological Sciences offers both the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Geology. Persons interested in these programs should contact the Director of Graduate Admissions in the department.

For admission, an applicant must provide transcripts of previous university work, two rating forms or letters of recommendation, and GRE scores (general). Students are not normally admitted under non-degree status.

Prerequisite for both degrees is a Bachelor's degree, including coursework in mineralogy, optical mineralogy, petrology, stratigraphy, paleontology, structural geology, and field geology. One year each of coursework in calculus and chemistry and one year of coursework in biology, physics, or statistics are also required. Applicants lacking any of these may be admitted, but the deficiencies must be removed within the first year without graduate credit. Substitutions may also be allowed.

The Masters Program

The department offers the thesis option in the masters program. Graduation requires successful oral defense of a written thesis and a minimum 3.0 GPA in all graduate coursework.

Course requirements are a minimum of 30 semester hours, including:

  • Six hours of Thesis 500.
  • Registration in 595 during the first two years in residence. Two hours may be counted toward the 30-hour minimum. This requirement may be waived in unusual circumstances.
  • Sixteen hours of geology courses, with at least 14 hours at the 500 or 600 level, including at least one course from any three of the following five groups:
  • Group 1: 410, 460, 480, 530, 563, 565.
  • Group 2: 420, 520, 525, 545, 546, 556.
  • Group 3: 470, 570, 571, 575, 576.
  • Group 4: 401, 485, 510, 521, 535, 550, 561.
  • Group 5: Any 400- or 500-level courses with graduate credit from related departments (allied sciences, mathematics, and engineering), selected with approval of advisor.
  • Eight hours of additional graduate coursework.

The Doctoral program

The prerequisite for the Ph.D. program, in addition to that for the MS. program, is either a master's degree in Geology, or a Bachelors degree plus completion of 9 hours of course-work from the list in #3. above, including one course from each group. These courses may be taken while completing other course requirements.

Graduation requires passing a comprehensive examination, taken no later than the end of the second year, completion of all course requirements with a minimum 3.0 GPA, completion of the language requirement, and successful oral defense of the dissertation.

The comprehensive examination includes both written and oral parts in which the candidate will be tested on his/her knowledge of the area concerning the proposed dissertation and of related fields. The candidate is expected to be conversant in a wide field of geological sciences.

A minimum of 24 hours of graded course-work beyond the masters degree is required in addition to the 24 hours of Dissertation 600. The coursework includes the sum of 9 hours of 600-level geology courses, 9 hours of 500-level or higher geology courses, and 6 hours of additional graduate courses. Extra-departmental coursework is encouraged.

The student must demonstrate a reading knowledge of a foreign language in which there is a body of geologic literature, as approved by the student's dissertation committee. The foreign language requirement may be waived for Ph.D. students whose native language is not English and who have demonstrated mastery of the English language, as determined by the student's dissertation committee.