General Catalog 2001-2002
Posted April 9, 2001

College of Mines and Earth Sciences

Member, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.  Curricula in geological, metallurgical, and mining engineering accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).

Dean, Francis H. Brown, Ph.D.
Office, 209 William Browning Building, 581-8767

Departments

Geology and Geophysics
Metallurgical Engineering
Meteorology
Mining Engineering

Degrees

Bachelor of Science (B.S.)
Master of Science (M.S.)
Master of Engineering (M.E.)
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

The College of Mines and Earth Sciences provides programs for students who have interest in subjects concerned with the Earth and with earth resources.  We welcome students who intend to follow professions in the earth sciences, geological engineering, metallurgical engineering, mining engineering, and meteorology.  Our degree programs in earth sciences and meteorology are also suitable for students who plan any career that requires a science background.  In addition general instruction in science is provided to students who desire to gain a broad knowledge of the atmosphere, of geological processes, and/or of ancient life on earth.  

Undergraduate Programs

Requirements.  Admissions requirements for the college are the same as those for the University.  Transfer students from other institutions are accepted with advanced standing after evaluation of credits.  Students who intend to major in a department within this college will benefit from meeting with a departmental advisor as early in their program of study as possible.  Students must complete all University and departmental requirements for graduation.

Curricula.  First-year curricula are similar for all departments in the College, so that students may change their major at the sophomore year with little increase in the time required to earn a degree.  Departmental listings in the Courses section of this catalog give specific curricular information.

Scholarships.  The dean’s office awards >20 scholarships annually to deserving students with majors in the College of Mines and Earth Sciences.  Metallurgical Engineering, Mining Engineering, and Geology and Geophysics each receive two graduate fellowships annually through the dean’s office.  Other scholarships and fellowships are awarded by the departments and by the University.  Details may be obtained from the dean’s office or from individual departments.

Student Loan Funds.  Student loan funds, administered by the college, are available for students enrolled in departments in the College of Mines and earth Sciences.  Loans are based on need and scholastic standing.  Department chairs must recommend students seeking loans from these funds.

Bachelor’s Degrees.  A minimum of 120 credit hours of work, approved by the department chair, is necessary for the bachelor’s degree in all departments except Mining Engineering, which requires a total of 132 credit hours.

The B.S. degree is granted to all students completing a prescribed engineering curriculum in geological, metallurgical, or mining engineering, and for completion of a prescribed curriculum in environmental earth science, geology, geophysics, or meteorology.

Graduate Program

Degrees for advanced work in the departments of the College of Mines and Earth Sciences are granted by The Graduate School of the University.  All departments in the college offer M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs.  For information, see the Graduate information section and individual departments in the Courses section of this catalog.

The M.E. degree program is administered by the College of Mines and Earth Sciences.  For complete program information see the departments of Geology and Geophysics, Metallurgical Engineering, and Mining Engineering in the Courses section of this catalog.

Professional Degrees.  A professional degree may be conferred upon individuals who are alumni of the College of Mines and Earth Sciences or of its predecessors, the State College of Mines and Mineral Industries, and the School of Mines and Engineering of the University of Utah, with a B.S. or an advanced degree in engineering. They must have engaged professionally in the field in which they obtained their degree, or in an allied field, for a period of not less than five years after graduation; and they must have distinguished themselves by outstanding professional accomplishments or service in the fields in which they obtained their degree or in an allied field.

College Resources

Amongst our most important resources are funds for undergraduate and graduate student support in the form of scholarships and fellowships through the Dean’s office and through the departments.  Details are available from the departmental offices.

The college has classrooms, laboratories, and offices in 8 adjacent buildings, including modern lecture halls in a teaching facility.  Specialized facilities include thin section and sample preparation laboratories, machine shop, digital earthquake recording laboratory, field vehicles, and extensive collections of rocks, minerals, and fossils. Computing facilities are upgraded frequently, and several departments maintain laboratories for undergraduate and graduate instruction.  All general-access computers have Internet access and access to campus resources such as high-performance IBM and SGI computers.

Geological, Geophysical, and Geological Engineering Studies.  Undergraduate scholarships and a limited number of graduate fellowships are available through the department for students of high academic standing.  Other graduate students are supported through funding on research grants.  Details are available through the department office.

Our most valuable resource is our faculty, staff, students, and alumni.  Many faculty have earned special awards for teaching and research.  Faculty strongly involved in research projects are aided by outstanding graduate students, and by a smaller number of interested undergraduates.  Our staff endeavors to provide the highest standard of service to students and faculty, and our alumni provide assistance to students through advice, instruction, and financial aid.

Geological studies use modern instrumentation for elemental, mineralogical, and isotopic analysis of geological materials, including groundwater. Transmitted light, reflected light and cathodoluminescence microscopes are available for textural studies, with heating/freezing stages in place for fluid inclusion studies.  Soft rock studies benefit from an X-radiographic facility, and from extensive invertebrate, vertebrate, plant, micro, and trace fossil collections.

Geological engineering faculty maintain a field station in nearby Red Butte Canyon for instruction in groundwater and hydrology.  A very modern laboratory allows dating of groundwater by the tritium-helium method.  Subsurface transport of bacteria, and groundwater contaminant remediation, are studied in the environmental geochemistry laboratory.  A portable groundwater laboratory is used in undergraduate instruction who use it to test water quality at field sites.  Faculty and graduate students have space in a very modern building which also houses other computationally intensive science and engineering programs at the University.  Geological Engineering students study rock mechanics using testing equipment in the Department of Mining Engineering, along with other engineering students..

Geophysical studies are aided by having full instrumentation for seismological, gravity, thermal, electromagnetic, and rock magnetic studies, in addition to high precision GPS equipment.  Field equipment includes portable digital seismographs and broadband seismometers, portable ground-penetrating radar, and a portable seismic reflection recorder, multicomponent geophones, and source for engineering/scientific seismic surveys.  The department is a member of the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), and the site of the Yellowstone Volcanic Observatory (YVO) of the US Geological Survey.

The Seismograph Stations, with 100+ telemetered stations for recording regional earthquakes along the Intermountain Seismic Belt, are closely linked with the academic programs in the department.

Metallurgical Engineering.  Undergraduate scholarships are available through the department for students of high academic standing.  Graduate students are supported as research assistants with funds from external grants.

Excellent facilities for particulate material processing, physical metallurgy, and extractive metallurgy are available for undergraduate training and graduate research.  These include equipment for crushing, grinding, and mineral separation, powder metallurgy, hydrometallurgy, physical metallurgy, and pyrometallurgy, and for selected in-house computer applications.  Equipment for the analysis of engineering materials includes an X-ray laboratory; image analyzer, scanning-transmission electron microscope; infrared, ultraviolet, and atomic force microscopes, and visible spectrophotometers.  Particle size, particle shape, surface characterization, and mineral-intergrowth analyzers are. Melting furnaces, a melt-spinning unit, and rolling mill, are used for the analysis and preparation of materials.

Meteorology.  Undergraduate scholarships are available through the department for students of high academic standing.  Graduate students are supported through our vigorous, well-funded research program.

The department maintains a modern weather analysis facility.  Current weather data is received through the department’s satellite ground station and processed on color workstations.  Users of this system can display real-time weather observations, satellite imagery, and forecasts generated by the numerical models at the National Meteorological Center.  The various products can be overlaid and looped in time.

Additional facilities consist of several networks of workstations.  Many programs developed by students in the course of their research run directly on these machines.  Large data sets—observational and model-generated—brought in over the Internet are studied using a library of interactive graphical analysis routines.  Analysis of cloud-radiation data sets and the development of climate models are also undertaken.

A permanent structure at the Red Butte Field Station houses the Facility for Atmospheric Remote Sensing (FARS).  FARS instrumentation includes a polarization ruby lidar, a scanning laser-diode polarization cloud lidar, passive radiometers, and a Ka-band (0.86 cm) microwave radar.  These units can be configured for mobile operations at remote field sites.

The department maintains a cloud physics laboratory including a vertical supercooled cloud tunnel capable of growing ice crystals under free-fall conditions.  The laboratory is also equipped with cloud chambers containing devices that measure the morphology of ice crystals.  The department’s optics laboratory has a laser and detection system designed to measure the scattering and polarization properties of cloud particles.

Mining Engineering.  All mining engineering undergraduate and graduate students of high academic standing receive departmental financial support.  

The campus is located near significant coal tar sands, base metal, precious metal, and nonmetallic deposits that provide opportunities for on-site visits and practical instruction during field trips. 

Facilities for undergraduate instruction and graduate research are housed in the William C. Browning Building and adjacent Mines and Ivor Thomas Buildings.  The nearby Energy and Minerals Research Center houses the Mine Systems Research laboratory (MSRL) and rock preparation laboratory.

The department maintains laboratories for the study of Computer Modeling and Design, Ventilation, Reclamation Mine Aerosols, and Rock Mechanics. 

Other equipment includes permeability apparatus for rock cores up to six-inches in diameter, coring and surfacing machinery, high-head-space bays for experimentation, and a detonation chamber with high-speed cameras, and high-speed data-acquisition capability along with field equipment for measuring environmental effects of blasting and down-hole detonation velocity.  For fabrication and maintenance of research equipment, a machine shop is maintained that is available to college units.

Research Agencies

Three research agencies report to the College of Mines and Earth Sciences and support its academic programs:  the Center for Atmospheric and Remote Sounding Studies (Meteorology), the University of Utah Seismograph Stations (Geology and Geophysics), and the Utah Experiment Station.  
More information about these agencies is given in the Research Agencies section of this catalog.