The Department of Geological Sciences is the main academic unit of the Jackson School. Founded in 1888, the Department is one of the oldest, largest, and most prestigious geoscience programs in the world. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Department's graduate program in the top ten nationally for earth sciences, the only program in Texas with this distinction. The Department also has top ten specialty rankings across the spectrum of the earth sciences.

The Department has strong ties to industry due to its large size, prestigious alumni, and geographic proximity to Houston, home to about two-thirds of the country's professional geologists.

Students further benefit from opportunities for employment, research assistantships, and academic credit working with Jackson School scientists at the Bureau of Economic Geology and the Institute for Geophysics.

With the hiring of a new dean for the Jackson School, Eric Barron, and the implementation of a strategic plan to capitalize on the extraordinory 2002 bequest of the late John A. Jackson, the Department is poised for even greater distinction over the coming decade.