The EER Graduate Program provides the opportunity for students to prepare themselves in management, finance, economics, law and policy leading to analytical and leadership positions in resource–related fields.

[15] Today the Bureau functions as a research unit of The University of Texas at Austin, the State Geological Survey, and the Regional Lead Organization for the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council.

With 70% of in-place reserves typically remaining in the ground at the time of oil field abandonment, this research has enduring economic and societal importance.

Remote sensing, including satellite (GRACE and MODIS) and airborne geophysics are used to quantify regional scale evapotranspiration, groundwater storage, and saline plume characterization.

Subsurface geologic and hydrogeologic characterization provides critical information on sustainability of water resources and potential for carbon sequestration and desalination.

Although many of the studies are focused in Texas, insights and process understanding are applied to other regions globally (such as China, India, Africa, and South America).

The Bureau provides wide-ranging advisory, technical, informational, and research-based services to industries, nonprofit organizations, and Federal, State, and local agencies.

UTIG strives to conduct research that expands the frontiers of knowledge in earth science, has societal and economic relevance, and is of human interest.

Chronologically, its scope is no less vast: from the development of tectonic evolution models that reconstruct continental arrangements as much as a billion years ago to predicting how future climatic scenarios would impact sea-level changes and thus the habitability of densely populated coastal regions.

The development of new mathematical models, data processing and imaging techniques, and geophysical instrumentation is also an integral part of UTIG's ongoing research and future goals.

Scientists in the Department conduct research and teach courses in 9 main areas: Atmospheric Sciences, Computational Geosciences, Geochemistry/Thermo- & Geo-chronology, Geophysics/Seismology, Hydrogeology/Glaciology, Paleontology/Geobiology, Petrology/Mineral Physics, Sedimentary Geology/Stratigraphy, Structural Geology/Lithospheric Geodynamics.

[19][20] Other major lab facilities include: Aqueous Geochemistry, Electron Microbeam (EPMA, SEM, ESEM, and XRD), Fission Track Thermochronology, Geomicrobiology, Geophysics (Landmark and Geoquest software for seismic processing and interpretation), ICP Mass Spectrometry, Isotope Hydrology, Mineral Physics, Paleomagnetics, Petrographic Imaging, Stable Isotope, Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (TIMS), and U-PB Geochronology.