Department website: https://www.jsg.utexas.edu/

Programs

Energy and Earth Resources

Master of Arts
Master of Science in Energy and Earth Resources

Geological Sciences

Master of Arts
Master of Science in Geological Sciences
Doctor of Philosophy

Dual Degree Programs

The following dual degree programs are offered. More information is available from the graduate advisor in each program. 

Major(s)	Degree(s)
Business administration/Energy and earth resources	MBA/MA, MBA/MSEER
Global policy studies/Energy and earth resources	MGPS/MA
Public affairs/Energy and earth resources	MPAff/MA

Graduate Studies Committees

The following faculty members served on the Graduate Studies Committee (GSC) in the spring 2026 semester.

Energy and Earth Resources

Jay L Banner Fred C Beach Shuvajit Bhattacharya J Eric Bickel Richard Patrick Bixler Alex Bump John C Butler Sergio Castellanos Jani Das James S Dyer John S Dzienkowski David J Eaton Brent Elliott Caroline E Farrior Kasey M Faust Genaro J Gutierrez Seyyed Abolfazl Hosseini Susan D Hovorka Carey W King J Richard Kyle

Benjamin D Leibowicz Marek Locmelis David Mohrig Dev Niyogi Jon E Olson Suzanne A Pierce Varun Rai Arvind P Ravikumar Ehud I Ronn Bridget R Scanlon Kamy Sepehrnoori John W Snedden David B Spence Melinda E Taylor Carlos Torres-Verdin Andrew Waxman Michael Webber Kenneth W Wisian Michael Howard Young

Geological Sciences

Daniel S Alessi Eric Attias Nathan L Bangs Jay L Banner Jaime D Barnes Thorsten Becker Christopher J Bell Srinivas V Bettadpur Donald D Blankenship David Chas Bolton Daniel O Breecker Alex Bump Meinhard Bayani Cardenas Ginny A Catania Elizabeth Jacqueline Catlos Jingyi Chen Julia Allison Clarke Kerry H Cook Jacob Aaron Covault Ian W Dalziel Hassan Dashtian Peter Eichhubl Brent Elliott Dapeng Feng Peter P Flaig Peter Barry Flemings Sergey B Fomel James E Gardner John A Goff Timothy Andrew Goudge Cyril Grima Sean S Gulick Anna Ruth Weston Halberstadt Patrick Heimbach Douglas Hemingway Peter H Hennings Marc Andre Hesse Brian K Horton Seyyed Abolfazl Hosseini Xavier Janson

Zhe Jia Benjamin Keisling Melissa Kemp Richard A Ketcham John C Lassiter Luc L Lavier Fa Li Jung-Fu Lin Marek Locmelis Robert G Loucks Christopher Lowery Matthew Alan Malkowski Shujuan Mao Craig Martin Rowan Clare Martindale Ashley Michelle Matheny Tip Meckel Lorena G Moscardelli Maria-Aikaterini Nikolinakou Dev Niyogi Yuko M Okumura Cornel Olariu Judson Wiley Partin Geeta Persad Daniella M Rempe Demian M Saffer Alexandros Savvaidis Mrinal K Sen Timothy Michael Shanahan Krista M Soderlund Kyle Thomas Spikes Daniel Stockli Chenguang Sun Zoltan Sylvester Nicola Tisato Danielle Touma Harm J Van Avendonk Zong-Liang Yang Kehua You Duncan A Young

Facilities

Energy and Earth Resources

The program in energy and earth resources is interdisciplinary. The facilities of the Departments of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, Economics, Government, and Geography and the Environment, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, and the McCombs School of Business are available. Materials located in the Walter Geology Library, the McKinney Engineering Library, and the Perry-Castañeda Library include an array of specialized publications, such as the contract research of the United States Department of Energy and its predecessors, a selective collection of United States and Texas government documents, conference proceedings, and society and association publications. In addition, a wide range of electronic information resources in science, business, and the social sciences is accessible through the University Libraries website.

Geological Sciences

Austin provides an ideal base from which to conduct research projects in all aspects of geological science. The University’s central Texas location gives students ready access to exposures of Phanerozoic siliciclastic and carbonate strata and Precambrian igneous and metamorphic basement rocks. The presence of a karst aquifer beneath the city of Austin allows students to study issues related to urbanization, the demand for water, and contamination. Field-intensive studies for master’s and doctoral degrees are continually in progress in Texas and in many other states. Field research is currently being conducted on every continent and ocean basin.

Analytical facilities are comprehensive and up-to-date. The electron-microbeam laboratory houses a JEOL JXA-8200 electron microprobe with five wavelength-dispersive spectrometers and an energy-dispersive spectrometer, as well as a Phillips/FEI XL30 environmental scanning electron microscope and a JEOL T330A scanning electron microscope, both of which are equipped for energy-dispersive chemical analysis, cathodoluminescence imaging and spectroscopy, and orientational analysis using electron backscatter diffraction. Two inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometers are available for elemental and isotopic analysis of diverse geologic materials: a Micromass magnetic-sector multicollection device with nine Faraday cups, a Daly ion-counting channel, and three ion-counting channeltrons; and an Agilent quadrupole device. Both instruments can be interfaced with a Merchantek 213-nm-wavelength laser-ablation unit for spatially resolved analysis. These instruments are complemented by a Finnigan-MAT 261 thermal ionization mass spectrometer with seven Faraday cups and one ion-counting channel. Ultraclean laboratories support preparation of samples for rubidium-strontium, uranium-lead, U-series disequilibrium dating, samarium-neodymium, and other isotopic analysis. Additional geochemical instrumentation includes two VG gas-source mass spectrometers for hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon stable-isotope analysis, and a Micromass Multiprep automated preparation system for water and carbonate analyses.

The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences houses a dual high-resolution X-ray computed tomographic scanner used for nondestructive three-dimensional visualization and analysis of the internal structure of geologic samples; a Siemens D500 X-ray diffractometer with Datascan automation software and JADE pattern analysis; and a paleomagnetic laboratory with a shielded room, 2G cryogenic magnetometer, Bartington susceptibility meter, and ASC impulse magnetizer. Special microscopy facilities incorporate an Edge R400 real-time high-resolution three-dimensional light microscope; a USGS-type gas-flow fluid inclusion stage; and a Technosyn luminoscope. Among additional facilities are a 1-m × 1.5-m × 10-m flume for sediment transport studies and an experimental petrology laboratory containing hydrothermal pressure apparatus and one-atmosphere gas-mixing furnaces.

Geophysical research employs portable multichannel seismographs with vertical and three-component geophones; a ground-penetrating radar system; a LaCoste-Romberg gravimeter; an airborne Optech LIDAR system for fine-scale topographic mapping; an Optech ILRIS tripod-mounted laser scanning system for very-high-resolution outcrop topography; five portable broadband Guralp seismographs for teleseismic studies; two Vibroseis seismic sources, for both low- and high-frequency three-axis shaking; 10 dual-frequency geodetic-quality GPS receivers with choke-ring antennas; portable field magnetometers; and an aerogeophysical instrument package (radar, gravity, LIDAR, magnetometers) most often used in Antarctica. A field site south of San Antonio is available for calibration and testing of seismic instruments and techniques. Graduate students are frequent members of scientific crews on vessels of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System and of other nations, and students regularly conduct fieldwork in Antarctica using National Science Foundation Polar Programs facilities.

Facilities for data processing, data interpretation, and numerical simulation are extensive. There are multiple workstation clusters with Sun and SGI hardware, as well as Windows and Macintosh systems. Most major commercial software packages for seismic data processing and interpretation are available, along with software for GIS, potential field, synthetic aperture radar, and other applications.

The two research components of the Jackson School—the Bureau of Economic Geology and the Institute for Geophysics—are housed in adjoining buildings on the J. J. Pickle Research Campus. The two units contribute the expertise of more than 50 research scientists to the Jackson School. The bureau functions as the state geological survey for Texas and sells many different types of publications to the public. The institute includes the Hockley Seismic Station, located in Hockley, Texas, just north of Houston. The station, part of the IRIS Global Seismic Network, houses a broadband seismometer that collects information on global as well as Texas seismic events.

Reference materials include the 165,000-item Joseph C. and Elizabeth C. Walter Geology Library and Tobin International Map Collection, both located in the John A. and Katherine G. Jackson Geological Sciences Building. Research collections of about one million vertebrate paleontology specimens and about four million nonvertebrate specimens, including a type collection of about five thousand specimens, are housed at the J. J. Pickle Research Campus. The Bureau of Economic Geology maintains three major core storage facilities, containing nearly two million boxes of core and cuttings, mostly from North American sedimentary basins. The bureau also maintains a collection of nearly one million electric logs from Texas oil and gas wells.

Research support is provided by a well-equipped petrographic laboratory with a separate thin-section laboratory for student use, a machine shop, and an electronics shop. The department’s staff includes analytical chemists, computer support specialists, a petrographic section technician, a computer graphics specialist, a photographer, and a machinist.