Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology Undergraduate Specialized Curriculum

The Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology curriculum is intended for undergraduates interested in the application of geological and engineering data and principles to the study of rock, soil, and water to recognize and interpret geological and environmental factors affecting engineering structures and groundwater resources. Students learn to characterize and assess the risks associated with natural geological hazards, such as landslides and earthquakes, and with groundwater flow and contamination. The curriculum prepares students for graduate programs and professional careers in engineering, environmental geology, geology, geotechnical engineering, and hydrogeology. Students interested in this curriculum should contact a faculty adviser: Professor Loague, Pollard, or Hilley.

GES majors who elect the Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology curriculum are expected to complete a core course sequence and a set of courses in supporting sciences and mathematics. The core courses come from Earth Sciences and Engineering. Any substitutions for core courses must be approved by the faculty adviser and through a formal petition to the undergraduate program director. In addition, four elective courses, consistent with the core curriculum and required of all majors, are to be chosen with the advice and consent of the adviser. Typically, electives are chosen from the list below. Letter grades are required if available.

COURSE SEQUENCE (91-102 UNITS TOTAL)

REQUIRED GEOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (37-39 UNITS)

Subject and Catalog Number	Units
GES 1A,B,C. Introduction to Geology	4-5
GES 102. Earth Materials: Introduction to Mineralogy	3
GES 104. Earth Materials: Introduction to Petrology	3
GES 111. Fundamentals of Structural Geology	3
GES 115. Engineering Geology and Global Change	3
EESS 164. Fundamentals of GIS	4
GES 150. Senior Seminar: Issues in the Earth Sciences (WIM)	3
ENERGY 160. Modeling Uncertainty in the Earth Sciences	3
or EESS 161. Statistical Methods for the Earth and Environmental Sciences: Geostatistics	3-4
EESS 220. Physical Hydrogeology	4
GEOPHYS 190. Applied Geophysical Methods	3

REQUIRED ENGINEERING (20 UNITS)

CEE 101A. Mechanics of Materials	4
CEE 101B. Mechanics of Fluids	4
CEE 101C. Geotechnical Engineering	4
CS 106A. Programming Methodology	5
ENGR 14. Applied Mechanics: Statics	3

REQUIRED SUPPORTING SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (23-27 UNITS)

CHEM 31A,B. Chemical Principles I/II	8
or CHEM 31X. Chemical Principles	4
MATH 51. Multivariate Mathematics	5
MATH 52. Multivariate Mathematics	5
MATH 53. Multivariate Mathematics	5
PHYSICS 41. Mechanics	4

SUGGESTED ELECTIVES (11-16 UNITS)

Choose four courses from the following list or, with faculty approval, four related courses:

CEE 101D. Computations in Civil and Environmental Engineering	3
CEE 180. Structural Analysis	4
CEE 270. Movement, Fate, and Effects of Contaminants in Surface Waters and Groundwater	3
CEE 293. Foundation Engineering	3
CEE 296. Experimental Soil Mechanics	2
EESS 221. Contaminant Hydrogeology	4
ENGR 30. Engineering Thermodynamics	3
ENGR 50. Introductory Science of Materials	4
GEOPHYS 112. Exploring Geosciences with MATLAB	1-3
GES 102L. Introduction Mineralogy Laboratory	1
GES 104L. Introduction Petrology Laboratory	1
GES 130. Soil Physics and Hydrology	3
GES 131. Hydrologically-Driven Landscape Evolution	3
GES 217. Characterization and Hydraulics of Rock Fracture	3
GES 237. Surface and Near-Surface Hydrologic Response	3
MATH 103. Matrix Theory and its Applications	3
MATSCI 151. Microstructure and Mechanical Properties	3-4
ME 80. Strength of Materials	3

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