The Department of Geological Sciences at New Mexico State University offers graduate study leading to the Master of Science degree in geology. Advanced training offered through the program can qualify you for employment in environmental geology, mining geology, the oil industry, state or federal earth science jobs, or further graduate study and academia.

The location of NMSU in the southern part of the Rio Grande rift provides an ideal setting for a wide variety of geologic studies. The fault-block mountains and valleys in the rift area near the campus expose rocks of all the geologic systems except Triassic and Jurassic. Igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks of the Precambrian era are common, as are marine carbonates and clastics of the Paleozoic and Cretaceous. The Tertiary is represented by silicic, intermediate and basaltic rocks, including their source volcanoes and cauldrons, and associated sedimentary rocks exposed in nearby ranges. Tertiary and Quaternary basin fills form extensive exposures in the valleys.

Our program requires 30 credits of graduate-level work, including 6 credits for the thesis. Graduate study can be customized to your interests and might concentrate in such areas of faculty specialization as stratigraphy, clastic or carbonate sedimentology, structural geology, tectonics, petrology, geochemistry, economic geology, or paleontology.

Candidates for the master's degree must write a thesis based on original research and pass a final comprehensive oral exam. There is no foreign language requirement. The Graduate School offers guidelines for the preparation of a thesis. Further details are found in the graduate catalog.

The program is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach. We have cooperative arrangements with the programs in Soil Science in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences and Geophysics in the Department of Physics.

Laboratory facilities of the Department of Geological Sciences offer research opportunities in structure and tectonics, mineralogy, petrology, ore deposits, analytical, experimental, and environmental geochemistry, paleontology, and field mapping. The department maintains a fully equipped rock preparation laboratory and well-equipped geochemistry and hydrothermal laboratories.

Major equipment includes a Rigaku Geigerflex X-ray diffractometer, Rigaku ZSX X-ray fluorescence spectometer, a hydrothermal rocking autoclave system, tungsten carbide and corundum mills, an image processing system, and a zoom transfer scope. Soil and rock laboratory testing facilities are also made available to students. Scanning and transmission electron microscopes and a stable isotope mass spectrometer are available on campus.