20-Year Prospect
The United States will always need men and women to teach our youth the difference between sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rock...and to come up with innovations that change the face of the oil and gas industry in America.
George Mitchell was a geologist and the owner of a natural gas company. He figured out that hydraulic fracturing – better known as fracking – could be used commercially to draw natural gas out of the Barnett Shale in Texas.
And what a difference Mitchell's realization made. In 2013, U.S. crude oil production went up to seven million barrels per day, our imports of petroleum fell to ten million barrels per day, and our petroleum trade deficit dropped, too. Our petroleum-product exports going up to $140 billion? That was just gravy.
Of course, fracking isn't all unicorns and fluffy kittens. The state of Pennsylvania received nearly 400 complaints in 2013 claiming that drilling had affected private water wells, and more than a hundred cases of water pollution have been found in the Keystone State over the last five years.
Clearly, geology isn't all fossil identification and geologic-era memorization. There's money to be made on understanding Mother Earth's bones, too...and this is what'll drive your employment for years to come.