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Penn State University, Department of Geosciences:
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"Established in 1913, but with roots that extend to the founding of Penn State University in 1855, the Department of Geosciences is part of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, one of the original colleges of the University. Also within the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences are the Departments of Meteorology, Geography, Materials Science and Engineering, Mineral Engineering, and Mineral Economics. Geosciences benefits from close ties with these departments through research laboratories and other facilities. The department consists of 38 faculty members who work with about 110 graduate students seeking M.S. or Ph.D. degrees. Innovation is encouraged within research along with strong communication skills, and professional experiences obtained through participation in national meetings, publishing papers, and writing scientific proposals.
The Department of Geosciences is housed on four floors of the modern Deike Building. Faculty and graduate student offices and laboratories are supplemented by classrooms, computer facilities, and seminar rooms. The Earth and Mineral Sciences Library, with its extensive collection of books, journals, and maps, is also located in Deike building.
A wide variety of departmental activities are available to graduate students apart from courses and research. These include a student Colloquium series, seminars and talks by invited speakers and visiting scientists, departmental field trips and social events, and the Geophysical Society (student chapter of SEG).Resources of the department, the college, and the research units provide a rich variety of analytical, experimental, and field equipment. Analytical equipment includes:
- Facilities for rock and mineral analysis
- Plasma emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES, ICP-MS)
- Atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS)
- Ion chromatography (IC)
- Electron probe microanalyzer (EPM)
- Ion probe analyzer
- Nuclear reactor for INAA
- Lattice and surface characterization -X-ray crystallography and diffraction
- Electron microscopy (SEM, TEM, and STEM) and spectroscopy (visual range, infrared, and Raman)
- Access to instrumentation within the Materials
- Characterization Laboratory
- Rock mechanics and materials testing apparatus
Departmental computational facilities include an extensive UNIX (Hewlett Packard and Sun) Network with more that twenty work stations and four servers, a teaching lab with a server and eight terminals, superb graphics facilities with digitizing capability, and extensive data storage including disks, tapes, and magneto-optical disks.
There are many different areas of geosciences studied at the University by different members of the faculty. There are also many faculty members and graduate students that choose to involve themselves in research which overlaps two or more of these groups. These groups include Aqueous Geochemistry & Biogeochemistry, Structure/Tectonics, Geophysics, Chemistry and Physics of Rocks and Minerals, Sedimentary Geology, Earth Surface Systems, Hydrosciences, and Paleobiology."
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