The Department of Geology & Geography is a vibrant,exciting academic unit with 27 faculty FTEs ranging across the physical and social sciences. The department secures significant external funding, teaches thousands of undergraduates, generates high  numbers of PhDs, and provides invaluable service to the university.

Bachelors degrees are offered in Geology, Geography and Environmental Geoscience. The Geology and Geography programs each offer masters and doctoral degrees. The Department currently mentors over 173 undergraduate majors and supports 40 graduate teaching assistants, 20 graduate research assistants, three graduate fellows, and 21 non-funded graduate students.

G&G Research

Faculty in G&G are research productive and conduct their work all around the world.

Most projects address issues fundamental to the Mountain State, including petroleum and natural gas recovery, carbon sequestration, water supply and quality, natural resource mapping, plant ecology, rural health, economic and social  development, electoral politics, and geospatial data delivery.

• Faculty authored 36 refereed publications in 2009 and 26.2 publications/year in 2004-09.
• The NSF has awarded four Doctoral Dissertation Awards to the department in the last five years, supporting the development of PhD students.
• Funding comes from at least 25 different sources, including NSF and 11 other Federal agencies, four State agencies, and five energy corporations.
• G&G averaged 31 grant proposal submissions per year in 2004-2009.
• Faculty conducted research in geographically diverse regions from western US to Malawi and Mongolia.

G&G Teaching

Geology and Geography is an innovative, creative and engaging place for students to learn about the earth and its people, spaces and places.

• G&G has averaged over 24,000 student credit hours per year since 2007, and taught over 13,500 student credit hours in the Fall 2010 semester.
• The vast majority of freshmen lecture classes are taught by fulltime faculty and ALL premajors and majors are advised by full-time faculty in the Department.
• The Field Geology course in South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana has been taught every summer since 1948. It served as a  model course when WVU implemented a Capstone requirement.
• G&G has a near 100% placement rate of graduate degree recipients in their profession.
• 80 % of the 20 recent Geography PhDs have landed tenure-track Academic positions.

G&G Service

Geology and Geography provides quality service to the university, its community and nation. Faculty serve in many important roles across WVU.

• Tim Warner is a co-editor of “Remote Sensing Letters” and “Progress in Physical Geography.” Several other faculty serve as editors or associate editors to professional journals.
• Several faculty members have served recently as officers in specialty groups or divisions of our professional societies: the Association of American Geographers, the Geological Society of America, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Paleontological Society, Southern Regional Science Association, and others.
• G&G has invested heavily the WVU Faculty Senate, including service as Senate Chair, Faculty Representative to the Board of Governors, and chair of Faculty Welfare and General Education committees. In one recent session, 4 % of the Senate  membership hailed from G&G. Faculty are on important university and college committees from the OSP Faculty Advisory Committee to various other bodies.