About the programme option
In this programme option, you will learn how the composition and formation of rock types is connected to plate tectonic processes. You will investigate the distribution and transport of?elements in the Earth’s crust, mantle and core, and the processes that concentrate them into new rocks or economic resources.
In addition, you will work with the times, rates, and physics of geological processes. You will become familiar with tectonic, mechanical, and convective processes, and with planetary phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and climate. You will understand how geophysical processes impact long-term climate change.
You will acquire a number of methodological skills, from computation, data processing and data visualization to fieldwork and experiments, from remote sensing to laboratory analyses.
The programme option encompasses the disciplines of geodynamics, solid Earth geophysics, and planetary science, as well as petrology and geochemistry.
Geodynamics, geophysics and planetary sciences
Observations of the gravity or magnetic field of a planet and its topography provide insight into the planetary interior. Seismology allows investigation of the interior structure and material properties in more detail. Studying rock ages and the geological setting locally, regionally, or globally casts the temporal frame for the processes that drive tectonics or volcanism from the planet’s interior.
If you are interested in understanding large-scale processes, your tools and data to do so can come from remote sensing, numerical and computational methods, and laboratory analyses of fundamental rock properties such as density, yield strength, magnetism, or age. Rocks are the building blocks of all Earth-like planets, and their mechanical properties are different at different rates and times.
Reconstruction of the plate tectonic patterns and interior dynamics jointly are a speciality at the University of Oslo, and highlight the similarities and differences between the Earth (the only known planet with plate tectonics!) and other terrestrial planets.
Petrology and geochemistry
In order to understand how rocks form and develop, we study their compositions and textures and combine observations, theory, and models.
You will learn how to describe, analyse, and interpret rock structures in the field and under the microscope. You will use petrographic, geochemical, isotopic and geochronological data to understand the processes governing the history of a rock. These processes include melt formation, melt evolution, crystallisation and potential metamorphism or alteration, in particular related to deformation. We study how the mantle source of a magma controls its composition, how this composition is evolving during fractionation and through interaction with host rocks during ascent and emplacement, and how volcanic processes may affect the ocean, atmosphere and biosphere.
At the University of Oslo there is a particular interest in connections between deformation and reactions in magmatic and metamorphic rocks. This forms a good basis for understanding the formation of different types of crustal rocks in different tectonic environments – including the formation of ore deposits.
Career prospects
After completing this programme option, you can work in Norway and abroad as researcher or consultant at universities, for public authorities and institutions (e.g., NGI, NGU), in schools, in construction-related fields (roads, railroads, mapping), and in exploration companies.