Earth and Climate Sciences

UMaine is an ideal location to study Earth and climate sciences because of the natural laboratory in Maine’s hills, waterways, and coastline, and because of the amazing opportunities to do research inside and outside of the classroom. Current students may work as research assistants in labs doing a range of tasks including: crushing rocks for understanding past climate, analyzing minerals to identify key resources, sieving marine sediment to understand past ocean changes, testing water chemistry for contaminants, modeling glaciers in the past, present, and future, and sampling ice cores to study atmospheric changes. Our small department provides a great community feel for students to gain experience in a range of fields. Students work with their academic adviser to customize their class selections to align with their interests and career goals. Salaries in geoscience careers range from ~$50,000 to over $175,000. Career paths include consulting (private, geologic analysis prior to construction), government (USGS, USFS, local to federal), industry (mining and resource management), education (science teachers, journalism), nonprofits, and academia (professors, researchers, technicians, librarians) and more.