Alumni Careers
Photos of IUP Geoscience Alumni in Action

Most professional geologists work in one of three main areas:

  • extracting natural resources, such as oil, gas, coal or minerals
  • as earth science educators, either in K-12 schools or colleges and universities
  • as environmental scientists and regulators

The department at IUP trains students in all three areas with our traditional strengths in earth science education, environmental science, and field-based geologic research.

A huge shortfall in geoscientists is predicted to occur over the next twenty years in the oil and gas industry.

Geoscience Demand Graph

As oil and gas industry makes up nearly half of the total employment opportunity in our field, this trend implies a growing future demand for our academic program. In fact, we think this shortfall is already happening in western Pennsylvania. The petroleum geologists and energy executives who have visited IUP over the past three years have all emphasized the growing need for geologists to work locally on the Marcellus Gas play that is booming right now in the Appalachian Basin.

An interesting point is that, with the high price of oil and natural gas, the economic slowdown of 2008-2010 has not impacted either the workforce demand or the starting salaries for geologists in oil and gas, as shown in the salary chart from AGI.

Geoscience Salaries

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