Introduction
The Department of Geology is the oldest geology department in the country. It was founded in Singapore in 1956 and relocated to Kuala Lumpur in 1960. From its modest beginning, the Department has expanded and evolved into a multidisciplinary department, committed to the development of academic excellence in teaching and research. Presently there are 25 academic staff and more than 20 support staff in the Department.
The staff of the Department are actively involved in studies and research in all aspects of geosciences in Malaysia. To fulfill the needs of the private sectors, research on economic mineral deposits, engineering and environmental geology, and aspects related to petroleum exploration have been emphasized. Publications by the academic staff have contributed significantly to understanding of general geology, mineralogy, petrology, geophysics, stratigraphy, paleontology, sedimentology, petroleum source rocks, structural geology and tectonics of Malaysia and the region.
From early on in its history, the Department has been actively engaged in postgraduate research. Masters and doctorate graduates have gone on to become leaders in industries, government agencies and universities. Currently there are more than 20 local and foreign postgraduate students. The fields of research being pursued range from fundamental geology to applied fields such as geophysics, geochemistry, hydrogeology and petroleum geology.
The Department is equipped with a wide range of laboratory and field facilities for both research and teaching purposes. The Department of Geology has one of the most advanced organic geochemistry laboratory in Malaysia. The laboratory is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities such as hydrocarbon Source Rock Analyser (SRA), GC, GC-MS, Pyrolysis-GC, ATR-FTIR and microscope photometry system.
Other important equipment include EPMA, ICP, AAS, XRD, XRF, gravity meter, seismograph, magnetometer and particle size analyser. A well equipped computer laboratory with internet support, complete with geological and geophysical modeling softwares are also available. There is also a workstation laboratory with softwares for geological, geophysical, petrophysical, structural and reservoir analysis, modeling, visualization and simulation, that are widely used in the industry.
The Department library, known as the Klompe Reading Room, is well stocked with a wide variety of recent geological books and literature and has access to the Main Library of the University which has the largest collection of books and journals in the region.