Geological & Environmental Science, MA

The Earth and Environmental Sciences Department offers programs of courses and research leading to the Master of Arts in Geological and Environmental Science. Coursework and research opportunities are available to specialize in atmospheric sciences, global climate change, chemical oceanography and paleoceanography, environmental geology and geochemistry, isotope geochemistry, soil biogeochemistry and physiology, shallow subsurface and marine geophysics, groundwater and surface water hydrology, urban ecology and limnology, geomicrobiology, geomorphology and quaternary studies, sedimentation, sedimentary petrology, paleontology, experimental mineralogy and petrology, igneous and metamorphic petrology.

Faculty are involved in field activities from areas around New York City, to the northern Appalachians of New England, and continental U.S., to numerous localities around the world, e.g., the Southern Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caribbean, South America, South and East Asia, and Europe. Faculty members participate fully in the CUNY Graduate Center PhD program in earth and environmental sciences. Cooperative research projects exist with the American Museum of Natural History and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

Exciting projects are being performed by students and faculty, including arsenic contamination in the drinking water supply, environmental health and safety, cancer and genetic epidemiology, environmental geochemistry, study of sewage effluent contamination and its effects on hypoxia and the benthic foodweb in Long Island Sound, salinity intrusion and microbial contamination in the NY–NJ Harbor Estuary, paleoclimatological history of the Hudson River, global climate change (including hurricane patterns of the past and the future), tectonic history of Westchester County and the State of Maine, radiometric ages of ancient rocks and radionuclide tracing of oceanic carbon cycling, plant-atmosphere CO2 fluxes, microbial ecology of plant litter, and earthquake hazards.

Current funding for research is from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Environmental Health, Hudson River Foundation, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the CUNY Program for Environmental and Ecological Research, and the PSC/CUNY Research Awards. Students who have successfully completed the program have found employment in industry or government, or have entered PhD programs. Students in the Master of Science program in applied environmental geosciences are eligible for Roux Scholarships.

Academic Advisor

Gregory O’Mullan

gregory.omullan@qc.cuny.edu

Requirements for Matriculation

These requirements are in addition to the general requirements for matriculation.

1. The department requires that all students have taken a course in physical geology and a course in historical geology. However, recognizing that undergraduates may have studied in many different fields of earth sciences, additional expected undergraduate training may be in a broad array of subjects, including most of the following:
   • minerals; igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic petrography;
   • surficial processes/geomorphology;
   • sedimentation and stratigraphy;
   • structural geology and earth internal processes;
   • oceanography, climatology;
   • evolution and paleontology;
   • geochemistry, geophysics, and ecology;
   • field geology (an approved field course)
   The department’s graduate committee may waive the above requirements— except physical geology and historical geology—for students with a strong background in science who may wish to pursue studies in special fields such as hydrology, geophysics, geochemistry, or environmental sciences
2. Differential and integral college calculus, two semesters of college physics, and two semesters of college chemistry. College biology may be substituted for one semester of physics if appropriate
3. Students may be accepted with deficiencies in mathematics or allied sciences but must remove those deficiencies by taking the necessary undergraduate courses without credit. Deficiencies must be removed before the student may proceed beyond 12 credits of graduate work in geology

Requirements for Non-Matriculation

Students are to follow the college’s requirements for non-matriculation​.