Program Overview

Introduction to the Geology MSc Program

The Geology MSc program at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) provides advanced training in geology, applicable to geological problem-solving. Our graduates have a solid foundation of knowledge in the different core disciplines of geology sciences, complemented with advanced skills through specialized studies in selected areas.

Program Structure

The program includes compulsory courses, core elective courses for specializations in Geology and Paleontology, Hydrogeology, Petroleum Geology, and Environmental Geology, as well as Mineralogy, Petrology, Geochemistry, Mineral Resources, and Archeometry. Optional elective courses are also available to further tailor the program to individual interests.

Compulsory Courses

• Rock forming minerals: The most important rock-forming silicates, oxides, hydroxides, carbonates, halides, etc., their crystal structure, crystal chemistry, physical properties, and genesis for the identification of rocks and understanding their petrogenesis.
• Paleobiology: Fossilization of organic and inorganic material, processes and products, taphonomy, trace fossils, biostratigraphy, paleoecology, paleobiogeography, evolution on micro- and macroscale, and paleobiological events and processes.
• Petrographic analysis: Texture and structure of volcanic and metamorphic rocks, textural and optical characterization of rock-forming and accessory minerals, petrographic features of ultramafic rocks, mafic igneous rocks, intermediate igneous rocks, felsic igneous rocks, pyroclastic rocks, and sedimentary rocks.
• Construction of geological maps and sections: Types of geological maps and sections, strike and dip, determination of bedding planes, dip sections, construction of map view from dip data, strike sections, apparent dips, and arbitrary sections.
• Geological mapping field school: Application of principles and abilities gained during the course, field observations, measurement of stratigraphic sections, and documentation of an assigned area.
• Paleontological analyses: Basic knowledge about micro- and macrofossils.
• Integrated stratigraphic analysis: Application of stratigraphic methods in selected case studies, complex lithostratigraphic characterization of geological formations, and major groups of age-diagnostic fossils used in biostratigraphy.
• Structural geology: Students get familiar with stereographic projection, basic structural forms, and their geological background.
• Sedimentology: Roots and development of sedimentology, allogenic controls on sedimentation, facies, sedimentary environments, uniformitarianism, facies models, and bed load transport in unidirectional and oscillatory flows.
• Geology of Hungary and the surrounding regions: Geological setting of the Pannonian region, structural units, main evolutionary stages, pre-Variscan and Variscan structure evolution, and post-Variscan and early Alpine structure evolution.
• Introduction to geochemical analytical techniques: Introduction to the most commonly used analytical techniques of geochemical applications, particularly those used in Hungary.
• Rock-water interactions in the rock record: Fundamentals of the interaction of gravitationally controlled groundwater flow systems with sediments and rocks within the sedimentary and diagenetic realm.
• Geomathematics: The subject is the direct sequel to the B.Sc. subject called Environmental calculations, with special emphasis put on hypothesis-testing, regression analysis, basics of time series analysis, and multivariate data analysis.
• Quaternary geology: The Quaternary Ice Age, history of research, timing, and causes of glaciation, Quaternary glacial sedimentary deposits, non-glacial sediments, and their stratigraphy.
• Directed studies–Thesis project 1 and 2: Students work on their thesis projects under the guidance of a supervisor.

Core Elective Courses for Specializations

Geology and Paleontology

• Applied micropaleontology: The role of the most important microfossils in stratigraphy, paleoecology, paleobiogeography, based on their most important taxonomical, systematical, stratigraphical, and ecological features.
• Biostratigraphy: History of biostratigraphy, the role of biostratigraphy in stratigraphy and geology, index fossils, biozones, FAD, LAD, and quantitative biostratigraphy.
• Paleobiology in sauropsid reptiles: General introduction to sauropsid reptiles, taxonomy, systematics, skull in sauropsids, jaws and dentition, vertebral column, appendicular skeleton, and techniques in vertebrate paleontology.
• Paleobiogeography: Fundamentals of paleobiogeography, methods in descriptive paleobiogeography, making paleogeographic maps, faunal provinces of the past, comparative paleobiogeography, statistical methods, case studies, and interpretive paleobiogeography.
• Characteristic fossil assemblages of the Carpathian region: Introduction to the geology of the Carpathian region, brief history of paleontological research, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic fossil assemblages.

Hydrogeology, Petroleum Geology, and Environmental Geology

• Hydrogeology: The Applied Hydrogeology introduces students into transient phenomena of groundwater fluctuations, barometric and tidal efficiency, geohydrology, and geophysical methods of groundwater research.
• Data processing and analysis in hydrogeology: The subject is the direct sequel to the B.Sc. subject called Environmental calculations, with special emphasis put on hypothesis-testing, regression analysis, basics of time series analysis, and multivariate data analysis.
• Organic geochemistry: The course provides basic knowledge of source rocks and oil and gas geochemistry, basics of major analytical methods, and methods for the interpretation of laboratory data.
• Hydrocarbon exploration, production, field development: Oil and gas exploration, play and prospect analysis, hydrocarbon projections, land and marine science and research portfolio, research-production project, concession, mining royalties, and surface exploration phase.
• Subsurface geological mapping: Basin analysis topics include classification and evaluation of sedimentary basins, tectonics and sedimentation, basin forming mechanisms, and discussion of individual basin types.
• Correlation of cores, well logs, and seismic data: Principles of sequence stratigraphy and its application in practice, demonstrated with several case studies, roots and development of Sequence Stratigraphy, its role in earth sciences.
• Seismic interpretation: Basics of seismics theory, acquisition, processing, pitfalls in interpretation, types of unconformities, reflection terminations, seismic facies, and basic deformational elements on seismic.
• Geodynamics of the Pannonian Basin: The objective of the course is that students become familiar with the Pannonian Basin and tectonic environment of structural development.
• Digital techniques in seismic and well-log interpretation: The aim of the course is to introduce students to interpretation software widely used in the industry, such as IHS Kingdom and OpendTect.
• Basin analysis and petroleum systems: Basin analysis topics include classification and evaluation of sedimentary basins, tectonics and sedimentation, basin forming mechanisms, and discussion of individual basin types.
• Groundwater flow in drainage basins: The aim of the course is to acquaint the student with the principles, knowledge, methods, and techniques needed to investigate, understand, and exploit for utilitarian purposes the properties, controlling factors, and manifestations of regional groundwater flow in drainage basins.
• Petroleum hydrogeology: Petroleum Hydrogeology is the science and practice of applying hydrogeological principles and techniques to petroleum exploration and basin analysis.
• Environmental isotopes: Basic geochemistry of the Earth and its spheres, principles of radiogenic and stable isotopes, brief geochemistry of significant environmental isotopes, and understanding of the behavior of characteristic environmental isotopes.

Mineralogy, Petrology, Geochemistry, Mineral Resources, and Archeometry

• Isotope geochronology: The course provides a summary on various geochronological tools, the students will learn the theoretical background of these methods, the methodology of the analyses, and they gain knowledge on the current developments in high-resolution geochronological techniques.
• Environmental isotope geochemistry: Basic geochemistry of the Earth and its spheres, principles of radiogenic and stable isotopes, brief geochemistry of significant environmental isotopes, and understanding of the behavior of characteristic environmental isotopes.
• Environmental geochemistry: The aim of the course is to introduce the students to the basic principles and importance of environmental geochemistry, including basic notions, sampling and analytical methods, inorganic and organic pollutants, speciation, migration, and alteration of pollutants.
• Magmatism in extensional basins: The main goal of this course is to give an understanding of the magmatic response to extension of the continental lithosphere, the students will learn the reason of melt generation and its relationship with various parameters.
• Practical micromineralogy: The role of micromineralogy in geological investigations, sample preparation methods, recognition features of heavy minerals, occurrence of heavy minerals in sedimentary rocks, heavy minerals in source rocks, provenance of heavy minerals, and determination of heavy minerals in binocular microscope.
• Archeometry of stone tools, ceramics, and metals: Rocks, ceramics, and metal finds in Archaeology, basic archaeological and museological knowledge, methods of analysis of the chipped, polished, and ground stones, provenance of raw materials, and technology and scientific/historical implications.
• Examination of geological field samples: Each student of this course gets one field sample collected in one of different field practice courses for geology MSc students, in the beginning of the semester students have to put original geological question to be answered with available methods.
• Petrography and petrogenesis of igneous and metamorphic rocks: The aim of the course to practice the in-depth analysis of igneous and metamorphic rocks under the polarizing microscope and the petrogenetic interpretation of observations.
• Volcanology: Volcanology – history and evolution of this scientific field, definitions and terminology in volcanology, from the source to the surface, the reason of melt generation, volcanoes and plate tectonics, triggering mechanism of volcanic eruptions.
• Sedimentary mineral resources:
• Mineral exploration: Preparation of three case studies based on independent bibliographic research, selection of a mineral promising from the point of view of investment into its prospecting and exploration, selection of a particular depositional type of the mineral selected, and summary of the most important characteristics of that deposit-type.
• Applied crystal chemistry for geologists: Systematic mineralogy, most frequent minerals present in the natural environment, their basic mineralogical properties.
• Instrumental analytical techniques in geology 1 and 2: Geological problems and their translation to analytical tasks, complex approach to the analysis of geological materials, texture-(mineral)phases-chemical composition, sample collection, sample preparation, separation, observations, morphology-basic physical and chemical properties.
• Field studies of magmatic and metamorphic minerals, rocks, and mineral deposits: Field studies of major ore deposit types in the Pannonian basin, mineralization of Paleozoic intrusives, Paleogene intrusives and subvolcanic bodies, and Neogene volcanics.
• Mineral deposits 1 (magmatic, metamorphic, hydrothermal): Determining factors of the ore deposit formation, plate tectonics vs. ore deposit formation, the most important Precambrian and Phanerozoic ore deposit types, and examples of world-class deposits.
• Fluid inclusion studies:
• Igneous petrogenesis: From source to the surface, magmatic processes from the melt generation to the magma chambers, types and conditions of the partial melting process, magma differentiation, quantitative petrogenetic model calculations.
• Metamorphic petrology and petrogenesis: Types of metamorphism and its governing factors, chemical groups of protoliths, the facies principle, and facies series, petrogenetic grids, and basic notions of geothermo-barometry.
• Advanced petrography: Texture and structure of volcanic and metamorphic rocks, textural and optical characterization of rock-forming and accessory minerals, petrographic features of ultramafic rocks, mafic igneous rocks, intermediate igneous rocks, felsic igneous rocks, pyroclastic rocks, and sedimentary rocks.
• Geochemical calculations:
• Petrology of the Earth’s interior: Petrological structure of the internal layers in the Earth, as a function of pressure, temperature, chemical composition, and other governing factors, sources of information on the petrology of layers in Earth interior.
• Geology of bauxites: Bauxites as mineral raw material for the aluminum industry, bauxites occurring on the lateritic and in the karstic association, bauxites, soils or sedimentary rocks, sequence stratigraphic implications.
• Hydrothermal systems: mineralogy and geochemistry: General characteristics of hydrothermal systems in the Earth's crust, fluid, igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic, meteoric, and seawater-derived fluids composition of hydrothermal fluid flow is the source of heat.
• Soil mineralogy: The mineral components of the soils and the practical application of their study, sampling methods, analytical techniques, identification of mineral phases, climatic control on the mineral constituents of soils.
• Clay minerals and their transformation processes: The course will review the layered modular system of relationships and the crystal chemistry of clay minerals, possible substitutions introducing the concept of layers of charge.
• Structural spectroscopies in geology: The course provides an introduction to the theoretical background of structural spectroscopic methods as applied to geological materials and the interpretation of analytical results in solving geological problems.
• X-ray diffraction in geology: The X-ray diffraction of polycrystalline material, factors affecting the development of the diffraction profile, physical characteristics of the mineral, especially the mean grain size tested.
• Electron optical methods in geology: Modern-day electron-beam instruments for the analyses of solid materials are presented, which are available in a variety of forms with wide range of capabilities.
• Practical transmission electron microscopy: This practice-oriented course deals with modern-day electron-beam instruments for the analyses of solid materials, which are available in a variety of forms with wide range of capabilities.

Optional Elective Courses

• Environmental history: Sources of environmental history, documents, archaeology, geology/paleontology, lectures, and assigned readings, followed by supervised research.
• Mesozoic foraminifera studies: History of the Mesozoic foraminifera studies, introduction to the foraminifera taxonomy, morphological characters of the most important Mesozoic foraminiferal groups.
• Paleontology of the Mollusca: Anatomy of molluscs with special reference to the hard parts, molluscan phylogeny as reflected by the fossil record, the use of molluscs in interpreting lost environments.
• Modern carbonate sedimentary environments: Students get familiar with carbonate sedimentary environments, ecosystem, biogeochemical global cycle’s effect, comparative studies from all over the world.
• Complex geophysical and geological interpretation practical: The aim of the course is to analyze a representative case study enabling the students to carry out a combined interpretation of different data sets and information.
• Oceanography (Marine Sciences): Modul 1 – Physical Oceanography, the thermohaline circulation on present-day Earth, density-driven circulation, the definition of deep and surface water according to different principles of science.
• English for geoscientists: The course provides practical training to develop professional English language skills in all four main areas, emphasizing both informal and formal modes of communicating geoscience.
• Unconformity-related phenomena: The aim of the course is to introduce the students to the problematics of submarine vs. subaerial unconformities occurring at sequence- and parasequence boundaries.
• Hypogenic caves in Hungary: The course provides an introduction to speleology and subsurface karst geomorphology, the epigenic and hypogenic processes of cave formation are discussed.
• Hypogenic caves in Hungary field practical: To accompany the lectures, this course is structured around field visits to Hungary’s most spectacular and scientifically important cave systems.
• Geology of North America: The North American craton, the main tectonic units of the craton, the Archean of the Superior and Slave Provinces, early Proterozoic orogenic belts, and the assembly of the North American craton.
• Limnology: The learning goal of the course is that students acquire basic knowledge about limnology, the types of inland waters, land, development, morphometric and functional properties.
• Karst hydrogeology: Porosity in carbonate rocks, characterization of groundwater flow in karst aquifers, recharge and discharge areas in karst terrains, epigenic and hypogenic cave formation.
• Well logging: Introduction to well logging for petroleum exploration, drilling and drilling environment, borehole diameter, temperature and pressure, mud-log information while drilling, core sampling, geophysical logging.
• Well-log interpretation practical: Laboratory practical and exercises in well logging for petroleum exploration, drilling and drilling environment, borehole diameter, temperature and pressure.
• Thermodynamics in geochemistry: The course aims to introduce the principles of thermodynamics into geological thinking and problem solving, the Earth's physical and chemical processes occur in different physical states.
• Medical geochemistry: Medical Geochemistry is a new branch of Earth Science which borrows methods and approaches from basic geochemical science and applies them evaluating interactions between the environment and geology and humans.
• Nuclear analytical methods and their application in Earth sciences and archeometry 1 and 2: Aims of the subject, to develop an understanding of the basics of nuclear analysis, learn about the modern trends of neutron activation analysis.
• Igneous petrogenesis: From source to the surface, magmatic processes from the melt generation to the magma chambers, types and conditions of the partial melting process, magma differentiation, quantitative petrogenetic model calculations.
• Metamorphic petrology and petrogenesis: Types of metamorphism and its governing factors, chemical groups of protoliths, the facies principle, and facies series, petrogenetic grids, and basic notions of geothermo-barometry.

Career Opportunities

Our graduates are best trained to seek employment in the petroleum industry, with groundwater and geothermal companies, or in the public sector, including universities, geological surveys, and research institutions. Their broad-based geological knowledge will prepare them to work in teams together with geophysicists and other geoscientists.

Job Examples

• Petroleum exploration: Our graduates find project geologist positions in the G & G (Geology & Geophysics) sector of the upstream segment of oil companies.
• Hydrogeology: Our graduates find jobs in the industry to explore and manage groundwater resources.
• Natural resources administration: Our graduates can fill positions in national geological surveys and other government offices responsible for management of natural resources.
• Geoscience research: Our graduates can apply to PhD schools at research universities and continue their education towards successful careers in academic research in Earth sciences.

Tuition Fees and Application Fees

• Tuition fee/semester: 4,190 EUR
• Application fee: 160 EUR (non-refundable)

Admission Requirements

• Entry requirements: Accepted Bachelor degrees, Geology, Earth Science, Environmental Science, Geography, Geophysics, Geological Engineering, if the applicant has at least 40 credits in the following fields, mineralogy, geochemistry, paleontology, geology, applied geology.
• Language requirements: An internationally accredited language examination is required with at least a B2 CEFR level or equivalent result.
• Documents to submit with application: Online application form, Bachelor-level degree, Transcript of records, CV, Motivation letter, Letter of recommendation, Copy of the main pages of the passport, Copy of application fee transfer, Language certificate.

Application Procedure

The application starts at the online application system. Students need to register in the system, fill in the online application form, upload the required documents, and follow the instructions during the application process.

Program Leader and Coordinator

• Program leader: Prof. Dr. József PÁLFY, Head of the Department of Physical and Applied Geology.
• Program coordinator: International Coordinator, Mr. Péter MOLNÁR.