A Brief Introduction
The Geology Department of Kunming University of Science & Technology (KUST) offers two majors, Mineral Geology and Geomatics Engineering. The Geology major once belonged to the Mining and Metallurgy Department of Yunnan University (founded in 1931). In 1954, Kunming Institute of Technology (predecessor of KUST) was established. At that time, the Geology major belonged to the Mining Department. Detached from the Mining Department, the Geology Department was established in 1958, with two majors of Metal and Nonmetal Geological Studies and Survey and Mineral Prospecting. In 1972, the Geomatics Engineering major was set up. In 1979, the former two geologic majors were merged into the Mineral Geology major; meanwhile the Research Institute of Mineral Geology was established. The Geology Department now offers a geology program leading to Ms.C. and Ph.D. degrees, and the geomatics program leading to the M.S. degree.
There are sixty-nine faculty members in the Geology Department. Thirty-two are working for geology major [seven professors (two of whom are doctoral supervisors), fourteen associate professors, nine teaching lecturers and two teaching assistants]. Eighteen [ten associate professors and eight teaching lecturers] are working for geomatics major. The additional eighteen staff members are working for laboratories and offices. Among the faculty members, five received the Ph.D, and twenty received the Ms.C. In addition, eight young teachers are pursuing the Ph.D. in China and abroad. The Department also has two part-time professors who are academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences. As of late 1998, the average age of faculty members is 38. years.
The Geology Department consists of three teaching and research institutes (General Geology T&R group, Mineral Geology Prospecting T&R group, Geomatics T&R group, Research Institute of Mineral Geology, Research Institute of GIS & Geomatics) and owns the nationally famous complete mineralogy and paleontology exhibition halls. In 1996, the Department was awarded a Popular Geoscience Base Copper Medal by the Geology Association of China.
The Department has provided more than 5000 geology and geomatics graduates to the country, including 1226 junior college students, 3936 undergraduates, more than 120 Ms.C. graduates and 14 Ph.D. graduates.
Current research fields in geology include Mineral Economics, General Geo-information for Minerallization Prospecting, Environmental Geology, Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology, Special Mineral Material, and that of the geomatics domain includes Deformation Analyses and Prediction, GPS in Engineering Surveying, Cadastral Information System and GIS/LIS. The Department has undertaken many national, provincial and local key research projects relating to non-ferrous metal, rare-earth and precious metal deposits, and mineral economics. In total, twenty-seven scientific achievements have been awarded by the Chinese government, provinces or ministries, and sixteen monographs have been published. At present, there are 19 ongoing research projects and 2.28 million RMB in research funding in the Department.
Science and technology develops very quickly. In the past several years, the Geology Department of KUST has enhanced its academic exchange and cooperation with universities both in China and abroad. It has sponsored the national symposiums on art minerals, tectonic geochemistry, and so forth, and has also invited many outstanding scholars to deliver academic speeches. Today, all faculty members are working with high spirits and are expending great efforts to initiate and provide the higher geological education and geoscientific research necessary to meet the needs of the 21st century.