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Major: Geology

National Park Service

How did Mount Everest, the highest place on earth, come into being? Why do the rocks of the Andes Mountains in South America contain fossils of ocean fish? As geology majors explore the earth's history, they gain valuable insight into some of today's most pressing concerns, such as global climate change.

If you study geology, you’ll learn about the earth's treasures, such as fossils and gems, as well as its dangers, such as volcanoes and earthquakes.

Geology students look at the earth and the forces acting upon it, including the solids, liquids, and gasses that make it up. Study includes such topics as historical geology, rock and soil chemistry, and the use of minerals in industry.

“You don't look at a rock as having a life, but it really does. It's splitting and moving and changing constantly.”

Mona, junior, geology, University of California, Berkeley

Are You Ready To...?

• Study sciences related to geology, such as biology, chemistry, and physics
• Think in the stretched-out timescale of geological time
• Spend three to four hours a week in the lab
• Visit geologically important local, regional, and national sites

It Helps to Be...

Someone who likes the outdoors, hiking, and camping. If you enjoy nature and are concerned about the environment and how we use it, you may enjoy this major.

College Checklist

• Are field trips and field instruction built into most, if not all, courses?
• How much access will you have to labs and instruments, such as chemistry equipment, housed in other departments?
• Have any of the professors worked as geologists outside of the academic setting (in industry, for example)?
• Will you have the chance to focus on a particular subject, like hydrogeology, environmental geology, or exploration seismology?

Did You Know?

• Geology not only looks at the past, but also uses knowledge about how the earth has formed and evolved to predict what will happen in the future.

Course Spotlight

In an introductory geology class, you’ll learn the basics of the major. You’ll learn how to identify rocks, minerals, and fossils. You may also cover such topics as plate tectonics. Plate tectonics is the theory that land masses, such as continents, are on plates that move across the surface of the earth.

Other topics include weathering and erosion processes, volcanoes, earthquakes, and the geological timescale, which goes back billions of years to the earth’s formation. Expect to spend plenty of time in the lab and on field trips putting course concepts into practice.