ABSTRACT
A major employer's decision to trim or eliminate an exploration department "dumps" significant numbers of exploration geologists on the "market" and perturbs the normal flow of university graduates into the private sector. University research funding for geoscience programs in mining geology, petroleum geology and exploration geophysics is mostly in the category of National Science Foundation small grants to individual principal investigators. The geoscience "research well" has been relatively dry since the days of AKPA's Vela Uniform project and Atomic Energy Commission-funded university uranium resource programs. The logical federal agency to support university geoscience research, the United States Geological Survey, has traditionally been an in-house research organization. The establishment of Mining and Mineral Resources and Research Institutes under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 is a first step in revitalization of university involvement with U. S. Mineral Technology. The most serious deficiency in university programs that impact on critical energy resources is in mineral technology.
