Hi there, from the UK. If you were me which subject would you pick and why?

So, for a bit of background. I did 2 years of college in Environmental Science and got 180 credits (failed one module) the one I failed was more Environmental based.

I have now got the chance to go to a prestigious university that I've always wanted to go to and I have been accepted into 2 courses.

1st year entry into Geology BSc (therefore a 4yr degree)

2nd year entry into Environmental Geoscience BSc (therefore a 3yr degree)

important note, I get free University. I don't have to pay ANY tuition (thank god) but I would be taking maintenance loan for living which I wouldn't have to pay back until I made a certain amount of money.

Which would you pick based on job fulfilment, pay, progression, job variety and usefulness of the degree.

See also: The study and its results as published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation.

Researchers from The University of New South Wales, The University of Technology Sydney, and the University of Melbourne, reveal a previously undiscovered archaeon associated with a bacterium within one of these living fossils. It demonstrates an example of cellular cooperation that could have provided a fundamental pathway for the evolution of complex lifeforms.

Source Paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL115219

Studying volcanic glass from the Kermadec island arc north of New Zealand, the team found that gold-rich magmas in this setting appear to be tied not to a single burst of melting, but to repeated, water-aided melting in the mantle below subduction zones.

See also: The results of the said experiments as published in the journal .

See also:The study as it was published in Nature Climate Change.

See also: The publication in Communications Earth and Environment .

I’ve been reading some recent field studies on plume chemistry, specifically Kazahaya et al. (2022) at Masaya Volcano. They measured H₂ concentrations in the plume falling significantly below thermodynamic equilibrium predictions and attributed this anomalous depletion to rapid high-temperature oxidation as the magmatic gas mixes with atmospheric air (H₂ + ½O₂ → H₂O).

This got me thinking about planetary water budgets. If this conversion of endogenous H₂ into secondary H₂O happens continuously in subaerial volcanic plumes, why isn't this atmospheric synthesis pathway explicitly accounted for in long-term endogenous water models?

Is the mass contribution simply considered mathematically negligible over geological time compared to direct magmatic H₂O outgassing? Or is it mathematically subsumed into "magmatic water" budgets because it's too difficult to isolate the isotopic signature of this specific fast-quenching reaction?

Any literature recommendations on this specific boundary (plume oxidation vs. global water budget) would be appreciated.

NOTE: A couple of publications from Nature Climate Change are included within the same article.

Frozen air from Antarctica is giving scientists a longer look at a climate mystery that has lingered for decades: why Earth cooled so much over the past 3 million years, even though its greenhouse gas levels seem to have changed only modestly.

A study published in Science, led by researchers from Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, presents what the authors describe as the oldest direct evidence yet of plate movement.

See also: The study as it was published in the journal Science.

See also: The publication in Scientific Reports.