College of Science, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
The Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences studies the composition of our 4.6 billion year-old Earth and its changing environment, and forecasts its future environment. One of the most salient features that distinguish our department from other natural science departments is that we investigate a variety of environmental systems of different sizes and characteristics across time and space.
Sponsored by the first stage of the Brain Korea project (1997 to 2004), the second stage (2005 to 2012) and the Brain Korea 21 Plus project (inaugurated in 2013), our department has been waiving tuition fees, providing stipends to Master's and doctoral program students and offering other opportunities, including short or long-term overseas research and international conference attendance opportunities, thus nurturing young science researchers with advanced knowledge.
Our department was designated and sponsored, a first in Korea, by the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity as a science research center for strategic mineral resources in 1991. Equipped with world-class experimental and research facilities collectively worth millions of dollars, our department aims to nurture area-specific experts by providing globally cutting-edge education and state-of-the-art research environment.
We offer advanced degrees in four primary fields:
(1) Petrology, Structural Geology & Paleoenvironment
(2) Economic Geology & Geochemistry
(3) Geophysics
(4) Environmental Science & Applied Geology.
Currently, around 40 students in our Master's and doctoral programs are performing research under the guidance of 10 full-time professors who supervise nine laboratories in the fields of mineralogy, geophysics, structural geology, petrology, geochemistry, groundwater, and atmospheric environment.
Academic Goals
Research and education in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) are focused on understanding the materials comprising the three fundamental components (i.e. the solid Earth, the hydrosphere, and the atmosphere) of the Earth System and the changes in the Earth's environments that have taken place throughout its history. The graduate program in the EES mainly consists of two sub disciplines: 1) solid Earth geoscience investigates the origin and genesis of minerals, rocks, and energy resources, and internal processes and tectonic evolution of the Earth, and 2) environmental geosciences specialize in soil, groundwater, and the atmosphere. The program aspires to excellence in geoscience and environmental geosciences and aim to produce high-caliber professional geoscientists with sound background capable of confronting and solving fundamental problems in the many sub disciplines of geoscience and environmental geoscience. .
Fields of Study
Geology
Geophysics
Environmental Geology
Atmospheric Environment