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Information from the University Website, 2003
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Vanderbilt University:
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Vanderbilt is a private, comprehensive university with a total enrollment of about 10,000. It is located on a large, park-like campus within Nashville, the state capital and a dynamic city with a metropolitan population approaching one million. Fossil-rich Paleozoic limestones underlie the beautiful forested hills in which the city is nestled. The Mississippi embayment (including the New Madrid Fault Zone) and the Precambrian granite terrain of Missouri lie to the west and the complex collisional Appalachian mountain belt to the east.
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Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences:
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The Earth and Environmental Sciences are concerned with the Earth's age and origin and with the processes that have acted and continue to act upon it. They focus on the physical and biological history that is recorded in rocks and landforms. In addition, a particularly critical emphasis today is on the changes in Earth processes brought about by humanity and on the immediate future of the planet. The Department of EES offers an undergraduate major leading to the B.A. or B.S. degree. Students majoring in EES participate in field and laboratory work. The comparatively small size of the faculty and student body allows many opportunities for faculty-student interaction. Students use the major as preparation for graduate study, for careers in environmental studies and resource exploration (petroleum, minerals), or for related careers in such fields as land use planning, teaching, law, or engineering.
Research programs in the department, which in most cases involve students, employ field, analytical, and experimental methods. A wide variety of geological processes are investigated, ranging from the migration of fluids and generation of magmas at deep levels, to the movement of tectonic plates and construction of mountain belts, to the evolution of sedimentary and biological environments, to geological processes in the human environment. Study areas, in addition to Middle Tennessee, include the southwestern United States and Pacific coast, the Appalachian Mountains, China, Antarctica, and the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans.
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Masters Degree Program in Geology:
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"A combination of very active research on a wide range of problems and close and enthusiastic interaction among faculty and graduate students make Vanderbilt an excellent institution at which to pursue the Master's degree in geology. The Department's small size (7 faculty, 10 graduate students) results in small classes and a close-knit atmosphere; at the same time, the vigorous research program presents opportunities to work on critical problems in the Earth sciences.
Research is highly diverse, both geographically and topically. Ongoing faculty and student projects include studies in Antarctica; China; the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans; and areas throughout the United States including the southeastern states, California, Utah, Washington, Arizona, and Nevada. Emphases include:
Igneous Petrology --- the nature, origin, and evolution of felsic magmas, granites as probes of the deep crust, magma chamber processes, and volatiles and ore formation."
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URL:
Vanderbilt University:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/
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