Geology is the science of the Earth. Geologists study processes that occur within the Earth and at the Earth's surface that produce landscape features, deposit natural resources, and sometimes produce geologic hazards.

Students completing the AS-Geology at MCC will have the academic foundation and experience needed for transfer to a university geology degree program.

A degree in Geology will prepare you for a wide variety of careers including: 

Some of these options are best pursued by continuing your education in a graduate degree program. Geologists are employed by state and federal agencies, environmental consulting firms, petroleum companies, construction firms, educational institutions, and resource management agencies. 

Geology Web Links

• Arizona State University Department of Geological Sciences
• Cause of Earthquakes - The plates consist of an outer layer of the Earth, the lithosphere, which is cool enough to behave as a more or less rigid shell. Occasionally the hot asthenosphere of the Earth finds a weak place in the lithosphere to rise buoyantly as a plume, or hotspot.
• Geochemistry of Igneous Rocks - Global element distribution, fingerprints, composition of the Earth's mantle and crust, oceanic ridge basalts, oceanic island basalts (OIB's) & alkaline series, continental flood basalts, orogenic andesites, special chemical types, extraterrestrial geochemistry.
• Geochron Laboratories - Isotope analyses
• Grand Canyon Explorer - The Geology of the Grand Canyon
• Lockheed Martin Space Operations at the NASA Johnson Space Center - Astronauts' Views of Earth from Space

• Microsoft Corporation TerraServer-USA - USGS aerial imagery and topographic maps
• Mineralogy Database - Database that contains information on over 4,000 species of individual minerals.
• Nevada Seismological Laboratory - The Nevada Seismological Laboratory has overall responsibility for instrumental studies of earthquakes in the Nevada region.
• Northern Arizona University Department of Geology
• University of Arizona Department of Geosciences
• University of California, Berkeley Museum of Paleontology - Web Geological Time Machine  
• University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center - SSEC - Volcano Watch Satellite Images
• U.S. Department of the Interior National Park Service - White Sands National Monument
• U.S. Geological Survey - Central Region homepage
• U.S. Geological Survey - Science resources about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment.
• U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program - Largest earthquakes in the world since 1900
• U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observatory Systems Data Center - Aerial photography, map products, elevation products, satellite products, land cover products, EDC image gallery, fire science, land cover characteristic program, U.S. Greeness, international activities, phenological characterization, UNEP/GRID, AmericaView, conferences, NASA DAAC, Satellite Missions, National Archive, EROS virtual tour, EROS publications
• U.S. Geological Survey Library - Online catalog, databases and other resources.
• U.S. Geological Survey National Geologic Map Database - Maps and related data about geology, hazards, earth resources, geophysics, geochemistry, geochronology, paleontology, and marine geology.
• U.S. Service of the Department of the Interior - Geology of Mojave National Preserve
• U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources - USGS Ground-Water Software
• Wikipedia - Tilly Smith is a British girl who, at age 10, was credited with saving nearly a hundred foreign tourists at Maikhao Beach (Thailand) by raising the alarm minutes before the arrival of the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.