University of New Mexico. Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

The Department of Geology (now Earth and Planetary Sciences) was established in 1897, some five years after the founding of the University. From the beginning, the department has held an important position in the University, as indicated by the fact that the second and third presidents of UNM were geology faculty. Expansion of the geology program has been continuous since its inception, with the first master's degree awarded in 1930 and the first doctorate in 1962. It was the first Institute in the world to be devoted exclusively to research on meteorites. The department, then with a faculty of five, moved into its newly constructed building (Northrop Hall) in 1954. In 1941, Dr. Frederick C. Leonard published a short paper in Contributions of the Society for Research on Meteorites entitled "The need for an institution for research on meteorites". The University of New Mexico responded to this plea by founding the Institute of Meteoritics in 1944. Growth of all aspects of the geology and planetary sciences program has accelerated in recent years to make it the largest in the state.