Copyright: © Copyright Lars Gronen

Geosciences make a large contribution in the sustainable use of the earth´s resources like rocks, minerals, ores, oil, natural gas, water, and geothermal energy. They take part by using the underground chamber as a building site. The geoscientific scope of duties includes:

• The exploration and production of both fossil and renewable energy sources such as oil, natural gas, coal and geothermal energy in deep underground
• The exploration of the formation and structure of mineral deposits
• The research of the structure and properties of minerals to produce new materials
• The analysis of the interactions between the building foundation and the building
• The prediction of rockfall and rock deformation e.g. as part of large tunnel and dam buildings
• The development and sustainable use of groundwater
• The analysis of geodynamic processes to cause heavy earthquakes
• The determination of the deformation of rocks due to forces of the earth´s interior

Geoscientists also deliver knowledge of long-term and short-term changes in the field of natural protection and sustainable handling of the earth raw materials. The preservation of groundwater reserves, the protection of human habitats and the renaturation of natural balance are important fields of work in the sector of Geociences and they are getting more and more important. Solving geoscientific tasks requires quantifying methods and models to make future-oriented predictions as for example for deposits, groundwater resources, risk of earthquakes and deformation of material. The “Applied Geosciences” are thus quantitative sciences with many interfaces to engineering sciences.

The course of study “Applied Geosciences” makes use of the fundamentals of physics, mathematics and chemistry. It composes thereof a science-oriented, geoscientific course of study. In contrast to the course of study “Georesource Management” and “Applied Geography”, this course of study delivers deeper knowledge about the structure, dynamics and chemism of the earth as well as chemical, physical and mathematical methods for solving complex, geoscientific problems.