The breadth and diversity of the faculty and facilities within the Department of Geology and Geophysics and the Center for Tectonophysics at Texas A&M University provide a graduate student a unique opportunity for advanced studies in a broad range of topics in structural geology and tectonophysics. Research in the Center emphasizes the integration of field, theory and experimental approaches to solving pure and applied problems.

Graduate students at Texas A&M become associates of the Center for Tectonophysics by choosing a faculty advisor that is an associate of the Center and by completing the tectonophysics core curriculum. Most students of the Center matriculate in the Department of Geology & Geophysics.

The program has strong ties to the petroleum industry, government research laboratories, and the geotechnical industry. Our M.S. and Ph.D. students are extremely successful in finding employment in these areas. In addition, a significant number of former Ph.D. students hold academic positions at national and international universities.

The John W. Handin Laboratory for Experimental Rock Deformation is the centerpiece of the research program and has a broad variety of experimental systems allowing studies of deformation and transport behavior of rock at physical and chemical states simulating surface to upper mantle conditions.

Faculty associates and graduate students have successfully acquired research funding from a diversity of funding sources including federal (National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, U. S. Geological Survey, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Southern California Earthquake Center), state (TAMU, OUR, ARP/ATP), and private and industrial (Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society, ExxonMobil Production Research, ExxonMobil Upstream Technology, Japan National Oil Corp, Marathon Oil, Mobil, Phillips, Shell, and Westbay Instruments) sources.