1.3 What Do Geologists Do?

 

A line of people in hard hats walk along a steep slope at the base of a cliff. The landscape below opens to water.
Figure 1.4 Geologists at work on the island of Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard archipelago. The islands are located in the Arctic Ocean north of Norway. Source: Gus MacLeod (2007) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. View source.

Geologists do a lot of different things.  Many of the jobs are the things you would expect:

  • Geologists work in the resource industry, including mineral exploration and mining, and exploring for and extracting sources of energy.
  • They do hazard assessment and mitigation (e.g., assessment of risks from slope failures, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions).
  • They study the nature of the subsurface for construction projects such as highways, tunnels, and bridges.
  • They use information about the subsurface for water supply planning, development, and management, and to decide how best to contain contaminants from waste.

Geologists also do the research that makes practical applications of geology possible.  Some geologists spend their summers trekking through the wilderness to make maps of the rocks in a particular location, and collect clues about the geological processes that occurred there.

Some geologists work in laboratories analyzing the chemical and physical properties of rocks to understand how the rocks will behave when forces act on them, or when water flows through them.  Some geologists specialize in inventing ways to use complex instruments to make these measurements.

Geologists study fossils to understand ancient animals and environments, and go to extreme environments to understand how life might have originated on Earth.  Some geologists help NASA understand the data they receive from objects in space.

Geological work can be done indoors in offices and labs, but some people are attracted to geology because they like to be outdoors.  Many geological opportunities involve fieldwork in places that are as amazing to see as they are interesting to study. Sometimes these are locations where few people have ever set foot, and where few ever will again.

 

Living with a Volcano

Figure 1.5 Ash plume from the eruption of La Soufrière on the island of St. Vincent on 9 April, 2021. In the Red Zone near the volcano, risk of life-threatening volcanic hazards is highest. An evacuation was ordered on 8 April, 2021. Source: Karla Panchuk (2021) CC BY-SA. Photograph by Lauren Dauphin, NASA Earth Observatory. Click here for more attributions.

 

References

Hansen, K. (2021, April 9). Eruption at La Soufrière. NASA Earth Observatory. Go!

Jones, D. (2021, April 12). From Bad To Worse: La Soufrière Volcano Continues To Erupt. NPR. Go!

Lovell, E., & Wilkinson, E. (Accessed 2021, April 30). Managing multi-hazard disaster risk in St Vincent and the Grenadines. Overseas Development Institute. Go!

Romo, V., & Newman, S. (2021, April 9). Volcano Erupts On Caribbean Island Of St. Vincent As Evacuation Continues. NPR. Go!

 

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Physical Geology - H5P Edition V1.1 Copyright © 2021 by Karla Panchuk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.