Bachelor in Geology

Fulfill your ambitions by gaining a training in an extremely diverse range of fields, including

• Management and use of the sub-soil environments (water, raw materials, fossil fuels).

• Global environmental management (climate change, protection of water resources, natural risks – volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides …).

• Geological mapping.

In addition to the basic courses in physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology, geology courses are taught in the first block and are accompanied by practical training based on the recognition of rocks and fossils. These achievements are complemented with a one-day field trip, which links the materials learned in the laboratory with the observations from outcrops throughout geological time. This first year programme makes students more aware of spatio-temporal scales encountered in geology; it shows them also that the present-day is a key to the study of the past. It also provides a first glimpse of the overall functioning of our planet, since the formation of the solar system to the way it is now perturbed by human activities. The blocks 2 and 3 of the Bachelor programme seek to strengthen the theoreticql geology courses and modeling, practical training together with their illustration in the field. Studies of field mapping, sedimentology, hydrology, geophysics ... show how geological analysis is diverse and based on a qualitative analysis on which are grafted, from the field observations, many measurements (compass, gamma-ray, resistivity ...) in order to quantify the processes taking place. Near the end of the bachelor programme, a field training of a 15-day period enable the students to make a geological map of the region themselves. This allows them to develop or utilize the knowledge acquired earlier and constitutes their first major personal work. Several practical training sessions under the supervision of a teaching assistant are then devoted to the establishment of the report of the field training course and to the completion of the geological map from the data collected. More theoretical courses such as mineralogy, igneous/metamorphic/sedimentary petrology, volcanology, metallurgy, and thermodynamic modeling of processes at the sediment/water and hydrosphere/biosphere/atmosphere interfaces, allow the students to integrate field data (drawing a geological map) in global contexts. This pedagogy in the acquisition of knowledge familiarizes the students with the uniqueness of the geological processes that operate at the local scale, but far beyond.

The training of geologists is versatile in nature. It is based on combined teaching of several subjects such as geology, chemistry and biology. The student will be able to develop skills in all sub-disciplines of geological sciences, particularly in petrography and mineralogy, paleontology, geobiology and biogeochemistry, sedimentology and (paleo)climatology, geophysics, volcanology and oceanography.

Through these themes, geologists trained at ULB will be apt to work in all regions of the globe. They are quickly hired in Belgium, but also in regions as diverse as Africa, Australia or New Caledonia.

The Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at ULB maintains close ties with the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium, the Royal Museum of Central Africa and the Royal Observatory of Belgium, as well as with a number of European institutions in the framework of the Erasmus-Socrates programme.

Our research assistants will give individual guidance to small groups of students.

You have at your disposal:

• a specialized departmental library.

• a microscopy room

• a computer room

• research materials for the supervised practical training (XRD, electronic microscopy …).