Master's Programme in Earth Science

Attention! International applicants residing outside of Norway and the Nordic Region must apply to the regional admission deadline; 1st of December. The application portal for international applicants open October 1st. More information about the general, international admission procedures can be found on UiB's webpages here. 

The following research areas can be addressed in a Master's thesis within the Department of Earth Sciences:

Quaternary geology and Paleoclimate

- Past climate and environmental changes, sea level changes and isostatic movements, cave science (speliology), geoarchaeology, landscape development, quaternary geological dating (geochronology), ice sheets and glacier studies

Geodynamics and Basin studies

- Sequence stratigraphy, sedimentology and facies analysis, analysis of carbonate reservoirs, seismic analysis, seismic inversion, rock physics, modeling and inversion of seismic, electromagnetic and production data, reservoir geophysics.

Geobiology and geochemistry

- Mineralogy, petrology, inorganic geochemistry, organic geochemistry, isotopic geochemistry, biogeochemistry, molecular microbiology, geomicrobiology, paleontology, environmental geochemistry

Geophysics

- Earthquake seismology, geothermal energy, the dynamics of divergent and convergent boundaries, paleomagnetism, structural geology and thermochronology

Many of the master's projects will offer opening up for cooperation with industry and consultancy companies outside of academia, such as Equinor, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, etc. Many master students will also have to travel on field work through their master's program. Fields of interest have formerly been Utah (USA), Svalbard, Malta, Taiwan, UK, as well as local projects in Western Norway and elsewhere in Norway.

Master's students who are offered admission to the program will be awarded a master's project and will be linked to the different research groups after project allocation. See more information under the headline "Master thesis".

Admission to the Master's Program
The master's program in Earth Science has two intakes per year. You can apply for admission to the Master's program in Earth Sciences April 15th (with start-up in August) November 1st (with start-up in January).

Here you will find more information about the application and admission process.

Here you will find an overview of available master projects at the Department of Earth Sciences for the intake of spring 2019.

Courses
During the first half of the Master's Program the students must follow 60 ESCTs of specialization courses. These are usually taken during the first three semesters. Which topics to follow depends on what master's project you are assigned and what academic background you have. Normally, the supervisor and the student agree on the final subject combination after the student has been admitted to the particular master's project. A list of potential courses to follow will normally be proposed in the projcet description. 

Master's thesis
As a student at the master's program in Earth Sciences you will be assigned a projcet already at the start of the first semester. The thesis yields 60 ESCTs and is a documentation of the research part of the Master's program in Earth Sciences. The master's thesis is usually the student's first opportunity for an independent, scientific authorship.

If you start the master's program in January, you must submit the Master's Thesis 20th of November 20th two years later. If you start in August, the submission deadline is 1st of June two years later.