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The Geophysics Option at UBC

Geophysics is ...

Non-destructive investigation of the Earth, or "remote sensing" from the air, the surface, or from boreholes.

See also UBC Geophysics splash page, or
Careers in geophysics at the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists.

Geophysicists work in ...

Geology, or studying how the physical Earth works (government, academic, industry, ...),
Engineering (mining, geological, civil),
Hydrology (finding and managing water),
Energy (finding and managing oil/gas, hydroelectric, and alternative resources),
Environment (characterizing hazards, cleaning up, protecting ...),
Mitigation of UXO (unexploded ordnance) and mine hazards,
Archeology - nondestructive characterization of underground objects and areas,
Climate and glacier research,
Planetary sciences,
Resource exploration (metals, oil/gas, water, diamonds and gems, building materials ...),
... etc.

Geophysics professionals ...

... are the high-tech members of the Earth-sciences team;
... enjoy working with instruments in the field, physical processes, mathematical analysis and processing, computing technology, and other related disciplines.
... must relate technologically intensive techniques to diverse types of Earth science problems.

Several slideshows explaining geophysics

See also links below for photos of undergraduate students doing geophysical field work, and for further information about geophysics at UBC.
First year courses with some geophysics: EOSC 110, 112, 114, 116.

Jobs - The Need for Specialists in Geophysics

What Skills and Talents are Appropriate?

Professional geophysicists are good at some or all of;

Working in the field, domestically and around the world
Physics / mathematics
Computing / programming
Instruments / electronics
Geology, chemistry, hydrology
Communication / collaboration

What do Geophysics Students learn?

Geophysics is a truely multidisciplinary, multi-facetted profession because practicioners must be able to work with a wide range of technical material, and understand the relations between several disciplines. People and project management skills are also crucial because work is often done in remote locations and / or there may be a range of parties all of whome have interests that must be understood. Subjects included in a geophysics degree include:

Geophysics
Geology
Physics
Applied math
Computer science
Applied problem solving skills
Electrical engineering, instrumentation
Signal Processing and imaging
Technical communication skills
Team and individual project management skills

What is attractive about a geophysics career?

Demand for professional geophysicists will be high in the upcomming decade (see below).
Travel: work in exciting places, with international concerns.
Pay scales can be very good, with prospects for advancement into technical or managerial positions.
Job statisfaction: application of technical know-how to challenging and important problems related to understanding, using, and managing our planet's resources and environment.

Who hires?

Large and small, local and multinational engineering consulting firms
Resource exploration (domestic and international).
- Petroleum industry has the vast majority of geophysics specialist
- Mining and exploration companies.
- Contractors - many smaller firms.
Environmental consulting firms
- International firms.
- Smaller firms with a need for engineers with geophysical experience.
- Hydrogeology; combinations of skills are very desirable (geology / engineering / geophysics / hydrology).
Careers in Geophysics - See the special section in the September 2000 edition of "The Leading Edge" (a monthly industry magazine published by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists).

General Remarks about Geophysics

1. Specialized training is required to ...

Select the correct approach for addressing a particular task;
Assess the capabilities, limitations, costs and benefits of all the options.
Manage and/or conduct the field work.
Perform data processing on spatial and/or frequency domain data (visualization, enhancement of features, suppression of noise and error, etc.)
Interpret field data - ie determine subsurface physical and geological properties and structures based upon data.
- This is the heart of geophysics.
- It is a non-trivial, non-unique problem.
Advise on suitable actions (exploration, management, engineering, etc) based on survey results.

2. Without proper training, non-destructive tools and methods appear to be "black boxes".

Professional geophysicists must de-mystify the methods and
Provide good, hard information for others in the decision-making team.

3. Geophysical information has unique characteristics. Proper training is required to understand the meaning of data, and how much (or how little) information can be gleaned from these data. Unique characteristics include:

Materials of interest are not always "seen" or tested directly;
The region of interest is often under-sampled. In other words fewer than the ideal number of measurements are made owing to cost constraints.
Therefore results are often indirect in some sense. Interpretations may be suggestive rather than conclusive.

4. Two common reasons for doing geophysical work are:

To help establish where more conventional or invasive work can be done most efficiently,
To provide enhanced information about types and distributions of subsurface physical properties.

5. The potential for cost savings is what often justifies geophysics work. Those who need to understand the geophysics are decision-makers in mining, engineering, environmental, or other projects. Three simple examples illustrate:

The huge expense of "hit and miss" drilling for mineral exploration targets can be drastically reduced by using appropriate geophysical surveys to establish regions of highest probability for drilling success.
In a bridge building project, a few thousand dollars spent on geophysics may save a few tens of thousands of dollars in drilling work needed to characterize the ground underlying the structure.
When managing facilities like mine-tailings ponds or earth-damns, a few geophysical surveys carried out periodically may provide warnings of potential problems, mitigating the huge expense of cleaning up if a facility were to fail without warning.

Further information

UBC Web locations

Brochure on geophysics at UBC (2.3 Mbytes, Adobe PDF format. Print 2-sided and fold into thirds).
Earth and Ocean Sciences home page
Undergraduate degree options in geophysics: B.Sc.Majors, B.Sc. Honours.
Geophysics research at UBC.
1. Applied geophysics for resource exploration.
2. Learning about the Earth's crust.
3. Glaciers and the cryosphere
4. Signals and seismology
5. Teleseismic (global) and active source (exploration) seismology
6. Specialized seismology
7. Planets - our own and others! Jellinek and Johnson
8. Other Earth and Ocean Science research at UBC.
Three short slide shows illustrating some aspects of geophysical surveying for engineering / environmental applications, petroleum exploration, and mineral exploration.
UBC students doing geophysics
1. Outdoor lab work
2. At UBC's geology field camp in the Okanagan
Applied geophysics web page
Geophysics professors
Geophysics graduate students
First year courses with some geophysics: EOSC 110, 112, 114, 116.
Scholarships
Co-op Programs
Students at SEG (at the Society of Exploration Geophysicists)
Careers in geophysics (at the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists).