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The School

Wills Memorial Building

Wills Memorial Building

The University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences is situated at the historic heart of the campus, in the neo-Gothic Wills Memorial Building, which has been refurbished with new research and teaching laboratories, lecture rooms and a workshop.

The School can trace its origins back to 1876, when Geology was offered as a subject at the original University College. When the University received its charter in 1909, Geology was taught within the Department of Zoology and Geology. It achieved separate status in 1910, under its redoubtable head then, Professor S. H. Reynolds. In 1992 its name was changed to the Department of Earth Sciences, to reflect the fact that the research and teaching activities had broadened to encompass environmental geosciences and Earth system science. In 2010 the University underwent some reorganisation and several Departments, including Earth Sciences, became Schools.

The School encompasses six research groups covering the spread of Earth sciences topics, and it teaches 10 undergraduate degree programmes, four of them jointly with the School of Biological Sciences and the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology respectively. We also offer three MSc programmes, in Earth System Science, Palaeobiology, and the Science of Natural Hazards, as well as an extensive PhD programme.

Currently, we hold some £12M in funding from NERC, in the form of grants, research fellowships, and studentships, as well as £4.5M from the EU and other sources. This funding pays for research personnel, equipment maintenance and renewal, as well as field and laboratory running costs. Each year, members of the School publish some 100 papers in the international scientific literature. Further, staff also publish four or five books each year, both textbooks and professional and conference volumes.

In recognition of the revolutionary changes which have occurred in Geology in recent years, the School has expanded by making many of its appointments in relatively new areas such as environmental geochemistry, mineral physics, isotope geochemistry, geological fluid mechanics, seismology and computing.

Last updated: 05/10/11