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Milestones in the History of the Department of Geological Sciences

  • 1888 School of Geology established by Robert T. Hill
  • 1891 First three students graduate who had taken geology classes
  • 1897 First M.A. degree in geology awarded
  • 1909 Bureau of Economic Geology established
  • 1911 First women enrolled in geology courses
  • 1912  Department of Geology established, B. A. degree program established
  • 1919  First UT geology field camp established
  • 1920 First organized Departmental field trip to west Texas
  • 1923 Discovery of oil under University Lands in west Texas spurs expansion of the Department of Geology
  • 1930  B.S. degree program in geology established, field camp required for degree
  • 1930 First Ph.D. degree in geology awarded
  • 1933 First Geology Building dedicated
  • 1941 Peak graduation number (80 B.A./B.S., 16 M.A.) from first oil boom
  • 1942 Introductory field course established (now GEO 420K)
  • 1948 Professor Ronald K. Deford hired to improve quality of the graduate program
  • 1949 Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory (VPL) established
  • 1950 Peak graduation number (185 B.A./B.S., 44 M.A./Ph.D.) in second oil boom, Department of Geology Newsletter established
  • 1953  Visiting speaker seminar series established
  • 1954  Geology Foundation established
  • 1957 Peak graduation number (130 B.A./B.S., 33 M.A./Ph.D. in third oil boom
  • 1961 Farish Chair in Geology established, first endowed chair at UT
  • 1967  Second Geology Building dedicated 1968 Department changes name to Geological Sciences
  • 1972 Geology Foundation endowment tops $1M, B.S. Geophysics Option degree established
  • 1982  Institute for Geophysics moves to Austin
  • 1983 All-time peak enrollments (825 undergraduate and 225 graduate students)
  • 1984 Peak graduation number (123 B.A./B.S., 43 M.A./Ph.D.) in fourth oil boom, Bureau of Economic Geology moves to Balcones (now Pickle) Research Center
  • 1990 B.S. Hydrogeology/Environmental Geology degree established
  • 1995  B.S. Teaching Option degree established
  • 1997  B.S. Geosystems Engineering and Hydrogeology degree established, M.A. degree changed to M.S. in Geological Sciences
  • 1998 M.A. with report degree established
  • 2001 John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences created
  • 2003 John A. and Katherine G. Jackson Geological Sciences Building Dedication, Geology Foundation 50th Anniversary
  • 2006 Dr. Eric J. Barron, dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Pennsylvania State University, is named new dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin.
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