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Geology is one of the youngest of the sciences. Though geological observations have be recorded in virtually all cultures including the Aztecs and Greeks, as a science geology was born in the late 18th Century through the work of James Hutton, Charles Lyell, and later Jean Lamark and Charles Darwin. These pioneers turned observation into solid theories which could be tested by further observation and experiment, and launched our ongoing quest to understand the Earth and how it functions. This is a quest in which the faculty, staff and students of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences are actively involved on a daily basis.
The department offers programs leading to Undergraduate B.A. and B.S., Graduate M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Earth and Planetary Sciences and a B.S. degree in Environmental Sciences. The department also offers a large and expanding variety of introductory and intermediate courses for undergraduate students who are interested in learning about how our fascinating planet works (including an option for a Minor in Earth Sciences).
Undergraduate programs emphasize a solid foundation in a broad range of Earth and Planetary Science disciplines, with research opportunities for advanced undergraduates in particular fields. Graduate students may pursue studies emphasizing structural, field, and regional geology; mineralogy, crystallography and materials science; volcanology; igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary petrology; geomorphology, soils, climatology, paleoclimatology and environmental geology; stratigraphy; sedimentology; tectonics; invertebrate and vertebrate paleontology; geophysics; geodynamics; paleomagnetism; geochemistry; geochronology; meteoritics and planetology; and environmental sciences.
Northrop Hall with Yale Mall and fountain in foreground.
The Department of Geology (now Earth and Planetary Sciences) was established in 1897, some five years after the founding of the University. From the beginning, the department has held an important position in the University, as indicated by the fact that the second and third presidents of UNM were geology faculty. Expansion of the geology program has been continuous since that time, with the first master's degree awarded in 1930 and the first doctorate in 1962. The department, then with a faculty of five, moved into its newly constructed building (Northrop Hall) in 1954. Growth of all aspects of the geology program has accelerated in recent years to make it the largest in the state. At present, approximately 15 doctoral, 30 masters, and 85 undergraduate students are pursuing degrees within the department.
The University of New Mexico is the largest institution of higher learning in New Mexico, both in undergraduate and graduate programs, and has a total enrollment of about 24,000. Occupying 600 acres two kilometers east of downtown Albuquerque, the campus consists of 150 buildings exemplifying the distinctive southwestern architecture. Several museums, two of them in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and a wide range of cultural activities are available on campus.
Zimmerman Library and mall on UNM Campus
The city of Albuquerque lies at an elevation of about 1.5 km above sea level, between the Rio Grande and the 3.2-km-high Sandia Mountains. With about 600,000 residents in the metropolitan area - one-third of the state's population - Albuquerque is the major business, light industry, and cultural center of New Mexico. The city enjoys a dry climate with distinct seasonal, though not extreme, temperatures. Light snowfall may be expected occasionally in winter and temperatures of 30-40°C in summer.
The University of New Mexico is a superb base from which to study Earth Sciences. The campus itself sits in the Rio Grande rift, a state-spanning north-south trending line of extensional basins that has strongly affected the recent geologic history of the area (including providing the region with its essential supply of development-enabling groundwater). The rift is receiving intensive study by numerous investigators interested in tectonics, structural geology, sedimentology, volcanology, geophysics, hydrology and regional geology. The immediate area surrounding Albuquerque offers a variety of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary units representing Precambrian to Quaternary ages, as well as a variety of topographic features.
About 90 km north of Albuquerque lies the one-million-year-old Valles Caldera, one of the largest on the North American continent and is a focus extensive volcanological, sedimentological and geothermal research. To the west lies the classic terranes of the Colorado plateau including the extensive coal and natural gas resources of the San Juan Basin. The northern part of New Mexico hosts the southern-most uplifts of the Rocky Mountains. To the southwest, extensional structures of the Basin and Range are developed within a varied terranes including a large mid-Tertiary volcanic field in the Silver City area.
New Mexico is rich in natural resources. Of the 50 states, New Mexico ranks high in production of potash, perlite, copper, CO2 , pumice, uranium, natural gas, molybdenum, silver, oil, gold, and produces many other geological resources, ranging from coal to gemstones. Host to highly productive uranium deposites produced extensively through the early 1990s, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southeastern New Mexico is receiving shipments of low-level radioactive wastes for storage in salt beds. UNM geologists are studying various aspects of environmental problems at this site and other mining-related sites in New Mexico.
Sedimentary rocks, many of them abundantly fossiliferous, cover about 80 percent of the state's surface and represent all of the geologic periods. Some areas within New Mexico have become well known for their unusual and impressive geologic features - White Sands National Monument, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, the great Permian reef system, the Valles Caldera, the classic coal-bearing Cretaceous transgressive-regressive sequences of northwestern New Mexico, and the Rio Grande Rift Valley, to mention a few.
New Mexico possesses an enormous variety of geologic phenomena for the student to examine in the field as part of his or her training in geology. Because of the large size of the state, its geologic diversity, and the remoteness of many areas, research problems for the graduate student abound. The department has exceptional analytical facilities available to students, so that research topics can be addressed with state-of-the-art methodologies.
The Faculty of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences reflects the diversity of both our geology and the disciplines of our science. We are committed to providing a rigorous background in the earth sciences to the undergraduate student and to guiding graduate students in scholarly research in all aspects of the discipline.
We encourage you to explore our web pages to get a glimpse into what we do.
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