Department Overview

The GES Department offers a major or minor in Geology, and a minor in Environmental Science.

Environmental Science Minor

Our ability to modify our environment has increased dramatically over the last several centuries. A host of recent events has forced us to become aware of the negative aspects of these modifications. More and more scientists are involved in seeking solutions to environmental problems as they work to increase our understanding of the causes, processes, and consequences of environmental change.

The "typical" environmental scientist is a specialist in one of the traditional disciplines such as biology, chemistry, geology, physics, or engineering. However, he or she generally has a broad scientific understanding of environmental change that goes beyond the confines of his or her discipline. It also includes an understanding of how environmental issues affect and are affected by politics and economics. The environmental scientist will often work in a team with professionals from other backgrounds to study and solve environmental problems.

At Hope College we offer an environmental science minor that helps students acquire the background they need to be successful environmental scientists. Our program is based on the premise that this background should meet the following goals.

• A solid preparation in one of the academic majors at Hope College.
• An understanding of the perspective this discipline brings to environmental science.
• A broad interdisciplinary understanding of environmental science.
• Knowledge of how environmental issues affect and are affected by politics and economics.
• An ability to work in a team with scientists and non-science professionals from other disciplines.
  

Geology Majors and Minors

Because of shortages of natural resources, continuing environmental problems, and a renaissance in thinking about the way the Earth works, the geological sciences are in a "Golden Age." Today geoscientists are making important contributions to human knowledge in environmental geology, oceanography, planetology, geochemistry, geophysics, plate tectonics, and paleontology.

At Hope College student-faculty research comprises an important part of the geology program. In recent years, students and faculty have been engaged in research projects such as:

• detecting trace metals in sediments in Holland's Lake Macatawa
  
• charting the crystallography of skeletal parts in fossil echinoderms
• experimental investigations on the remediation of contaminated ground water
• studies of the Precambrian geology of southern India
• reconstruction of the history of dune growth along Lake Michigan
• measuring antibiotics in groundwater
• examining the population structure of subterranean insects living at the water table
• understanding the ancient environments at a dinosaur site in Wyoming
• using lake cores as indicators of climate change since the last ice age
• making 3-D computer models or geological features from digital photographs

Traditionally, the training of geologists has included a large measure of field experience. Hope College is ideally situated to study glacial geology, sedimentology, geomorphology, limnology, and environmental problems. To broaden the spectrum of field experience, students commonly take longer trips to examine the geology of other areas such as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, and the Ohio River Valley in Indiana and Kentucky. In addition to these trips, each spring the regional geology field trip gives students the opportunity to visit and investigate the geology of a North American Region. In the past, regional field trips have gone to the Southern Appalachians; the Gulf Coast; the Colorado Plateau; Big Bend, Texas; Death Valley, California; Southern Arizona; New Mexico; and the Bahamas. May and summer trips have taken students to the Adirondack Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, the Black Hills, California, and Wyoming.

We are well-equipped for teaching and research. In addition to many student and research petrographic microscopes, the department has a heating and cooling stage, geographic information systems computer laboratory, X-ray diffractometer, thin section preparation laboratory, ion chromatograph, gas chromatograph, infrared Fourier transform spectrometer, and UV-Visible light spectrometer.

Because the study of the Earth is eclectic, geologists must be competent in the other natural sciences and in mathematics. Accordingly, we encourage strong minors in other sciences and composite majors with chemistry and physics.

The Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences has an established reputation of excellence. Many graduating seniors have gone directly to work in environmental consulting firms and oil companies while others have been accepted into some of the most prestigous graduate programs in the country, including the California Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton.