Geosciences

Seeing what holds the earth together in its innermost elements…

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part I

… that is exactly what drives geoscientists in their everyday work as they look for answers and explain the processes of our unique planet. Why does the earth look the way it does today? What actually happens in the ‘bowels of the earth’? What causes natural disasters like tsunamis, avalanches and earthquakes, and how can we protect ourselves against them? Long gone are the days where geoscientists would just look at dusty stones in old glass cabinets! Earth sciences is a diverse, high-tech subject with a bright future, especially given the growing importance of climate change and environmental protection.

If you study ‘Geosciences’ at the University of Jena, you will often swap lecture theatres for the great outdoors, where you will need a great deal of perseverance, curiosity and thoroughness to become a real Sherlock Holmes of our home planet. Your detective work will be required to document minute structures and fossils in rocks and examine their composition under the microscope or in the laboratory. By piecing together all these fragments of information, you will gather plenty of evidence that will ultimately lead to a result. And you might even manage to solve the case and ask yourself the crucial questions of life: How can we preserve the beauty and diversity of our planet? And how can we repair the damage caused by mankind?