What is the difference between geologists and geophysicists

They are also employed by groundwater and environmental consultant groups, state government geological surveys, Geoscience Australia, CSIRO, state museums and universities.

Why do Geologists and Geophysicists do this? The work of geologists and geophysicists is essential for: Exploration for mineral and fuel deposits Exploration for construction materials and groundwater The study of landforms to aid planning and development The protection of the environment against waste disposal Mitigation of natural hazards and disasters Design of civil engineering structures How do Geologists and Geophysicists do their job?

In present times, studying geology is a good prospect to land a decent and high paying job in both government as well as private sector companies. Geophysics, as the name implies, is the physics of the earth. What this means is that a geophysicist gets a chance to study the structure and composition of the rocks that make up the surface of the earth.

He also studies the natural physical processes that go on inside the surface of the earth. These physical processes such as tectonic movements, changes in the magnetic field and gravitational field of the earth, formation and weathering of rocks, seismic activities, magma formation and its flow, glacier activities and snow formation, and many other similar processes.

The nature of their work requires geophysicists to be concerned with more dimensions than either geologists or engineers. Geologists and engineers usually think in terms of the three spatial dimensions and time.

Geologists must also be concerned with all scales from nanometres for primitive cells of naturally occurring minerals through to the age, size and characteristics of the solar system and the galaxy and how interaction of forces within and surrounding the earth have affected the deposition of rock units on earth over the past 3 gigayears. Engineers are concerned with more human scale projects and perhaps a 25 to 35 year project life span.

Geophysicists deal with the same spatial scales as the other two professions, but must consider with full mathematical rigour a world with the following dimensions:.

Returning to modelling of mineral deposits for a moment, the mathematics behind the models force geologists to invade the turf they share with the geophysicists and in turn geophysicists have become more interested in the environments their instruments are describing. Calibration of survey data with real rocks on the ground and their characterization have become a joint imperative forcing the two main groups of geoscientists toward a common ground.

Close collaboration combined with fewer practitioners who are doing ever more sophisticated work has been diminishing the intellectual distance between them.

While hundreds of schools offer programs in geology, less offer programs in geophysics. The University of Utah, for example, offers a robust degree program for geologist and geophysicist majors. You not only take core curriculum, but also career-specific classes. You may spend your morning with a hammer and chisel, collecting samples, and your afternoon using sophisticated equipment analyzing your rock samples.