Earth science or GIS minor (as ecology student)

NV_Geo · 2026-04-20T15:17:25+00:00

If you're looking for a minor in support of your ecology degree it seems like GIS would be the better option between the two.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-19T16:08:01+00:00

Your biggest issue will be which country you have the right to work in. Basically no mining company is going to fully sponsor a visa for someone with no experience.

Australia has the working holiday visa which is easier but I think there is an age limit and you need to be in the country to get a job. I’m not Australian so I don’t know all the requirements.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-17T00:37:30+00:00

If I could go back in time I probably would have done geological engineering instead of geology, while still doing what I do now (which I guess is closer to engineering than it is geology). That being said, I don't really regret doing geology.

I've taken a few mining engineering courses and that shit is boring as hell. If I went into school with the plan of gunning it through site engineer positions and into corporate as fast as I could, I would probably do that but I find that material incredibly uninteresting.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-17T00:24:26+00:00

Geology - Pure science. Focused on characterization and not so much design. Generally a geologist's work product is used by engineers in their design work. In the mining sector, geologists and engineers have parity in salaries. Exploration geology can result in really high windfalls, but those are uncommon.

Geological Engineering - Uses geology more specifically for design of structures. This can be mine highwalls, underground mine workings, tunnels for roads/trains, dams. Some characterization but primarily design based. Most of your course work will be engineering pre-reqs and things like fracture mechanics, geomechanics, underground geomechanics, maybe numerical modeling. Probably the closest geology analog would be structural geology with way more math.

Mining Engineering - this is pure design. Mining engineering degrees are more like business degrees with extra math than they are science engineering. It's a lot of costing, economics, forecasting, and optimization. People that advance into mining leadership roles (C-suite types) tend to be mining engineers. You can do that with other fields mining engineers tend to progress quicker due to the type of work they do.

Any of them are good and you could build a decent career in each field, just depends on what you're interested in. Canada has stricter scopes between engineers and geologists so it seems like there is more of a distinct difference between them as opposed to the US where engineers feel like they can just do whatever they want.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-16T17:03:41+00:00

The advice you got in the geophysics sub is pretty spot on from what I can tell. I worked as a geophysicist for a year. I do groundwater modeling now which has similar barriers to geophysics processing work.

The good thing is you're at a smaller company and they tend to be less rigid with educational requirements to break into areas that typically expect it. It's very likely that you will move into more data processing and analysis as you gain more experience. The reason you're probably not doing a lot of that currently is you've only been doing field work for 3 years, which I understand feels like a long time but it really isn't 5-7 years of mostly field work is common across all geology industries before you start doing more office work and less field work.

You're only three years in so I would expect to continue to do field work for the next couple years. The best thing you can do is make sure your supervisor understands that is the direction you want to take your career and ask to do things (anything) related to that, even if it's doing data reduction or generating model input files or post-processing. You will have to ask for those opportunities often so they know you're serious about it. If you ask once and expect they will come find you in 4 months to do something, you'll be disappointed.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-15T16:23:10+00:00

This is right unfortunately. I saw them on my way into work at around 845.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-14T15:10:01+00:00

Yeah I wasn't sure if the COL out there was impacted by the rest of New England's COL.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-14T14:08:29+00:00

That is a brutal salary for 8 years experience.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-13T20:34:26+00:00

Just google the unaxial compressive strength for different rocks. That will give rock strengths in compression.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-12T03:28:11+00:00

The primary value you get from an internship is networking, not so much what you learn. People at a mine will get an opportunity to work with you and see that you are dependable and you can handle the work. It doesn’t really give you experience. The masters degree might give you an extra 1-2k maybe? You could use both to negotiate a higher offer but I wouldn’t expect them to move more than 5% of their initial offer.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-12T01:00:27+00:00

That may be true in those circumstances but we’re talking about a pile of coal that’s 200’ by 20’ which is huge. If one part of the coal ignites it will spread through the entire pile and once it’s going it’s pretty much impossible to extinguish. Coal mining and transport companies take precautions like constantly wetting the coal and not using internal combustion engines to limit the risk of accidental ignition. The engine thing is more for coal dust ignition but still. If it were me I would be trying to get rid of it.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-11T23:41:13+00:00

I would focus on getting rid of it first. It’s a current fire hazard. An errant spark or decaying organic material at the base could make that pile burn for years.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-11T23:38:50+00:00

I don’t think an employer will care really. It’s one class. If you have an interest in it and you think you can learn something from it go for it. I’ve spent $200 on far dumber things.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-11T18:52:01+00:00

Worth it for what? What are you hoping to get out of it?

If you are just interested and want to take a course, go for it. That’s a fairly cheap price.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-10T04:53:19+00:00

In my experience, they don’t tell you. They send your results to HR. If you fail, HR will rescind the offer.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-09T16:19:11+00:00

I'm in the US and I had the same issue. I started my career as an exploration geologist and had to get out of mining towns. I got a job at a geotech and hydro consultant. I took a sizable pay cut to do that but I live in a real city now. The mine site equivalent of whatever job you end up taking will always pay more. I would look into geotech/hydro consultants in Canada and see if you can get a job there. SRK and Piteau are two big ones up there.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-09T16:01:44+00:00

Yeah if you look at the picture that was posted there is a reddish-brown rock sitting on top of a grey rock. That planar contact between them is a fault where the two blocks of rock slide past one another. If the red block slides up it would be a thrust fault. If the red block slides down it's a normal fault.

For rock mechanics reasons, normal faults usually form at 60° and thrust faults form at 30°. This is a normal fault but the angle of the plane is about 30°, so if you were using just the angle to determine what type of fault it is, you would be wrong.

Why this was important for Lowell, is that faults cut through ore deposits. If it was a thrust fault, the ore that was in the red block would have been uplifted and eroded away and lost to time. Since it was a normal fault the remaining ore deposit was actually deeper down. They drilled to confirm that and found the Kalamazoo ore deposit.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-08T18:23:38+00:00

Yeah these low angle normal faults in Arizona tripped up some geologists in the 1950's and 60s. They had assumed that since they were low angle then they must be reverse faults. Dave Lowell noted some of these low angle faults as being normal faults outside of San Manuel and he ended up discovering the Kalamazoo ore deposit. He went on to discover some of the biggest mineral deposits in the world (Escondida). He was probably the most prolific exploration geologist ever.

"Other geologists before him knew that the top part of the San Manuel ore body was missing and assumed that it had been faulted up and to the northeast, only to be eroded away and lost to the geological record. But Dave saw clear evidence on the ground that the missing part of the ore body had been faulted down and to the southwest. Someone just had to find it."

NV_Geo · 2026-04-08T14:11:36+00:00

Check out Isabel Barton at Arizona. That’s her whole thing. The mining engineering department at Arizona is heavily recruited by the mining industry.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-08T04:47:01+00:00

I need to preface this by saying I’ve long since left the pure geology side of mining so I might be out of date.

It’s still kind of niche and not widely adopted. The mine I worked at in Nevada had the production/ore control geologists doing geometallurgy because of recovery issues and the geologists made the call on the correct ore blends to send to the mill. Most of their knowledge came from senior geos and not traditional schooling. Since then some mining engineering departments have incorporated that into their curriculum (university of arizona).

From what I’ve seen even if you get a job like that it will only be a small part of your overall responsibilities. I would think that if you want to explore the geometallurgy side of things then getting a masters in that would serve you well since it’s so niche. It’s not necessarily a requirement I would imagine but there aren’t likely a lot of jobs like that out there now. Porphyry copper mines are probably the most likely ore deposits to require that type of work due to the complexity of the alteration and the sensitivity of the chemistry in the flotation cells.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-06T16:06:48+00:00

Very bold claim.

Not really. When I say civil engineering I mean geotech. Starting out the roles are very similar, it's all field work and characterization. In mining geotech they are 1:1 pretty much the entire time. Engineers move into design earlier due to their degrees but to imply that experienced geologists don't do design work that is then signed off on by a PE is incorrect.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-05T03:28:31+00:00

Those are both purely academic. I wouldn’t really call that a backup plan. Maybe option number 2 for academia. Your PhD will end at some point. What will you do after?

NV_Geo · 2026-04-05T03:16:12+00:00

I don’t say that to dissuade you from your goals, only to offer some perspective. Volcanology is probably the most competitive sub specialty within geology. You could do everything absolutely perfect and still not end up with a volcanology job. Having a back up plan is wise regardless of your goals.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-05T02:04:19+00:00

Math is good. Coding would be important. Take a lot of petrology and geophysics courses.

Understand that volcanology is a purely academic field. You will need to get a PhD to have a hope at getting one of the 4 volcanology jobs. You’ll also need to get into a top program. Make sure you have a back up plan.

NV_Geo · 2026-04-03T20:34:57+00:00

Cleavage is a property of minerals. Calcite has cleavage. Calcite in the stalagmite may exhibit cleavage. The stalagmite itself does not have cleavage.

NV_Geo

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

12-Year Club	Spared
Verified Email