Bachelor's degree

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The lectures aim to present the basic concepts for describing, classifying, and characterizing soils: their different constituents (minerals, clays, organic matter, living organisms), their physical properties (grain size, texture, structure), chemical properties (clay-humic complex, CEC, oxidation-reduction), and biological (horizons and humus, root system, plant nutrition, role of bacteria, C/N ratio, soil fauna). We will study the factors involved in soil formation (climate, parent rock, living organisms, relief, time), the different processes of soil formation and evolution (weathering, humification, leaching, podzolization, pedoturbation, ferrallitization, etc.), the major soil classification systems, and the distribution of soils around the world. This scientific foundation will enable us to address current societal issues related to soils in tutorials: their degradation (erosion, pollution, artificialization, compaction, etc.) and their restoration (decontamination, phytoremediation, agroecology).

The field trip will provide an opportunity to put the concepts learned in class into practice.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 12 p.m.

Tutorial: 9 a.m.

Field: 6 hours

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The aim of this course is to synthesize concepts and knowledge acquired in L1 and L2 (stratigraphy, sedimentology, and history of life) and reinforce them with concepts from sedimentology, biostratigraphy, and anatomy. Together, these concepts provide the keys to surface geology for analyzing and reconstructing ancient depositional environments and interpreting their fossil content in a temporal context.

Hours per week:

CM: 6 hours

Practical work: 12 hours

Tutorial: 3 hours

FIELD: 6 hours

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This internship aims to illustrate, through the study of rocks from the Maures massif, the fundamental concepts presented in magmatic and metamorphic petrology courses, and to apply techniques for characterizing deeply deformed crustal rocks. In the field, particular attention will be paid to (1) textural and mineralogical description leading to the identification of rocks; (2) characterization of the source and type of magmatism; (3) identification of protoliths and characterization of the degree of metamorphism; and (4) recognition of structural objects and analysis of deformation.

A geological cross-section will be surveyed across a varied set of rocks, ranging from surface detrital deposits to the base of the lower crust. The Variscan geological history of the Maures massif will be supplemented by a study of Permian volcanism in the neighboring Esterel massif.

Hours per week:

Field: 27 hours

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The first sessions are devoted to reviewing the mathematical tools that will be used in the module. The course then consists of three parts: geothermics, gravimetry, and geomagnetism. The approach developed combines theoretical and practical approaches. Particular attention is paid during practical work to measurement and error estimation.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 15

TD: 30

TP: 9

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In the first part of this course unit, we will discuss the genesis and evolution of magmas from a petrological (microscopic observations of rocks and minerals, phase equilibrium) and geochemical (major element, trace element, and isotopic composition of minerals and rocks) perspective in different geodynamic contexts: ocean ridges, hot spots, and subduction zones.

In the second part of this course unit, we will introduce the main variables and different geodynamic contexts of metamorphism. You will learn to recognize mineral reactions and interpret them using the geometric rules of chemiography. We will discuss the concept of metastability and the influence of rock chemistry on their metamorphic evolution.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 9

TP: 18

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The course will cover the following topics:

• issues related to mineral resources in the global context,
• the main types of metal deposits, their formation processes, and mining operations,
• The environmental impacts associated with mining operations.

The practical work will aim to familiarize students with the main metal-bearing minerals (macroscopic observations and use of metallographic microscopes).

A field day will complete the training by studying examples of metal deposits.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 9 a.m.

Practical work: 12 hours

Field: 6 hours

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This course unit aims to describe, based on relevant tectonic observations at different scales, the functioning of major tectonic systems: folded systems, thrust faults, large normal faults, ductile shear zones, detachment domains, extensional domains, and more complex domains. Particular attention will be paid to regional case studies (France, United States, Tibet-Himalayas).

Hourly volumes:

CM: 9 a.m.

Practical work: 12 hours

Field: 6 hours

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This course unit consists of carrying out a project on a topic related to Earth, Water, and Environmental Sciences. The topics will be defined by the entire L3 teaching team and will involve addressing scientific issues using data acquired in the laboratory and/or in the field. The topics will be addressed by groups of 2 to 3 students and will be supervised by tutors throughout the L3 year as part of 2 complementary course units:

- Project TEE 1 in S5 will focus on bibliographic research activities related to the topic and the acquisition of tools for writing a scientific report and giving an oral presentation.

- The TEE 2 project in S6 will focus more on processing experimental/analytical data, critiquing the results obtained, and interpreting them. The final outcome of the study will take the form of a final report and an oral presentation before a jury.

This project-based course, spread over the two semesters of the third year of the TEE program, will provide students with their first experience of working independently. They will then be able to apply this experience to their master's program or directly to the professional world, depending on their career plans.

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This course provides students with the necessary foundations for understanding the transfer processes that affect the outer shell of our planet. Students will learn to decipher the imprint of these processes through the study of sedimentary rocks.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 3 p.m.

Tutorial: 3 hours

Practical work: 12 hours

Field: 6 hours

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This course unit aims to integrate the knowledge (geological and in terms of analytical tools) acquired up to the fifth semester of the bachelor's degree and apply it to the discovery of the architecture of the subsurface and the dynamics of the fluids it contains. It is structured around five areas: 

-Introduction to techniques for recognizing and characterizing the near surface applied to reservoirs (surface and well geophysics, hydrogeological measurements, sediment core studies);

- Application to a concrete case study: an aquifer in the Languedoc coastal zone;

- Acquisition of some of the data at an experimental site through dedicated measurement workshops (fieldwork);

- Processing, analysis, and interpretation of data acquired using dedicated software, as well as additional data from laboratory measurements;

- Summary and report/poster writing.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 6 hours

Tutorial: 6 hours

Practical work: 6 p.m.

Field: 12 p.m.

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This EU will focus on the following concepts:

1) The watershed ( definition, geometric, geological, and physiographic characteristics, hydrological behavior)

2) Precipitation ( Definition of precipitation, concept of showers and intensity, spatial analysis of point measurements (Thiessen, isohyets), temporal analysis of point measurements (return period, Montana)

3) Evapotranspiration ( interception, evaporation, transpiration, evapotranspiration, Turc formulas, Thornthwaite)

4) Infiltration (definition of infiltration capacity, characteristics of the unsaturated zone, concepts of water content, hydraulic conductivity at saturation, water potential, balance of forces and state of water in the soil, factors influencing infiltration and water profiles, Horton's law)

5) Runoff ( surface runoff formation, runoff coefficient, subsurface runoff, groundwater-river relationship, flood hydrograph decomposition)

6) The hydrological balance (the water cycle and the hydrological balance at different spatial and temporal scales)

7) Hydrometry (principle and measurement technique + fieldwork)

Hourly volumes:

CM: 12 p.m.

TD: 12 p.m.

Practical work: 6 hours

Field: 6 hours

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This course unit consists of carrying out a project on a topic related to Earth, Water, and Environmental Sciences. The topics will be defined by the entire L3 teaching team and will involve addressing scientific issues using data acquired in the laboratory and/or in the field. The topics will be addressed by groups of 2 to 3 students and will be supervised by tutors throughout the L3 year as part of 2 complementary course units:

- Project TEE 1 in S5 will focus on bibliographic research activities related to the topic and the acquisition of tools for writing a scientific report and giving an oral presentation.

- The TEE 2 project in S6 will focus more on processing experimental/analytical data, critiquing the results obtained, and interpreting them. The final outcome of the study will take the form of a final report and an oral presentation before a jury.

This project-based course, spread over the two semesters of the third year of the TEE program, will provide students with their first experience of working independently. They will then be able to apply this experience to their master's program or directly to the professional world, depending on their career plans.

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This course is primarily a practical training course in geological mapping, divided into two parts:

1 - A two-day pre-apprenticeship in the field in the northern Montpellier region. Introduction to field mapping methods (measurement, reporting) and structural and sedimentary section surveying in the St Martin de Londres basin. Students are supervised in the field in small groups of 10, using project-based teaching (additional work) and group teaching in the field (dialogue, interaction) led by a teacher who guides them in questioning, locating, and transferring cartographic data.

2 - Deepening learning through an 8-day immersion field trip in the Alps (Digne region). Using project-based and flipped teaching methods (alternating independent work with supervised days, i.e., small group rotation), students learn to map a region with high relief where the rocks are highly deformed, and field observation and spatial data are highly complementary. Total immersion in fieldwork allows for supervised work and monitoring of the student's daily work.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 2 hours (introduction to basic concepts)

Tutorial: 10 hours (3 hours of GIS, 7 hours of image analysis and section construction)

Fieldwork: 60 hours (12 hours in St Martin, 48 hours in Digne)

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- Hydrostatics ( Fundamental Principle of Hydrostatics, concept of buoyancy, Archimedes' principle)

- Fluid kinematics (streamline, trajectory, streamline, flow rate, Reynolds number, laminar flow, turbulent flow)

- Hydrodynamics of ideal fluids (conservation of mass, conservation of energy with Bernoulli's theorem, case studies: Mariotte vessel, emptying a tank, Pitot tube, Venturi)

- Hydrodynamics of real fluids ( origin of pressure losses and estimation of linear and singular pressure losses, generalized Bernoulli's theorem with pressure losses)

- Hydraulic machines (pump operation, H(Q) characteristics, operating point)

- Free surface hydraulics (hydraulic characteristics, Manning-Strickler formula, spillway formula, calibration curves)

Hourly volumes:

CM: 10 a.m.

TD: 10 a.m.

Practical work: 4 p.m.

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We will study the main external and internal processes that contribute to the shaping of landforms:

• Weathering process
• Wind processes and landscapes
• River processes and river landscapes
• Glacial and periglacial processes and landscapes
• Tectonic and structural geomorphology
• Slope process
• Karst landscape

Hours per week:

CM: 9 p.m.

Practical work: 9 hours x 2 groups

Field: 6 hours x 3 groups

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The Geodynamics EU combines the presentation, study, and characterization of the major processes associated with the geodynamics of the solid Earth: mantle dynamics, plate tectonics, plate boundaries (breakaways, subductions, collisions, oceanic expansion), and intraplate domains. These systems and processes are studied through natural examples at the scale of the crust and lithosphere, with an emphasis on integrating the various data and tools used in Earth sciences (geophysics, geochemistry, structural geology, rock mechanics, petrology, etc.). NB: the hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere are not covered.

The lectures are combined with tutorials focused on analyzing and summarizing documents in order to characterize geodynamic processes, drawing on concepts covered in geosciences since the first semester.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 3 p.m.

TD: 9 p.m.

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This course unit aims to integrate the knowledge (geological and in terms of analytical tools) acquired up to the fifth semester of the bachelor's degree and apply it to the discovery of the architecture of the subsurface and the dynamics of the fluids it contains. It is structured around five areas: 

-Introduction to techniques for recognizing and characterizing the near surface applied to reservoirs (surface and well geophysics, hydrogeological measurements, sediment core studies);

- Application to a concrete case study: an aquifer in the Languedoc coastal zone;

- Acquisition of some of the data at an experimental site through dedicated measurement workshops (fieldwork);

- Processing, analysis, and interpretation of data acquired using dedicated software, as well as additional data from laboratory measurements;

- Summary and report/poster writing.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 6 hours

Tutorial: 6 hours

Practical work: 6 p.m.

Field: 12 p.m.

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This course unit consists of carrying out a project on a topic related to Earth, Water, and Environmental Sciences. The topics will be defined by the entire L3 teaching team and will involve addressing scientific issues using data acquired in the laboratory and/or in the field. The topics will be addressed by groups of 2 to 3 students and will be supervised by tutors throughout the L3 year as part of 2 complementary course units:

- Project TEE 1 in S5 will focus on bibliographic research activities related to the topic and the acquisition of tools for writing a scientific report and giving an oral presentation.

- The TEE 2 project in S6 will focus more on processing experimental/analytical data, critiquing the results obtained, and interpreting them. The final outcome of the study will take the form of a final report and an oral presentation before a jury.

This project-based course, spread over the two semesters of the third year of the TEE program, will provide students with their first experience of working independently. They will then be able to apply this experience to their master's program or directly to the professional world, depending on their career plans.

See the full page

This course is primarily a practical training course in geological mapping, divided into two parts:

1 - A two-day pre-apprenticeship in the field in the northern Montpellier region. Introduction to field mapping methods (measurement, reporting) and structural and sedimentary section surveying in the St Martin de Londres basin. Students are supervised in the field in small groups of 10, using project-based teaching (additional work) and group teaching in the field (dialogue, interaction) led by a teacher who guides them in questioning, locating, and transferring cartographic data.

2 - Deepening learning through an 8-day immersion field trip in the Alps (Digne region). Using project-based and flipped teaching methods (alternating independent work with supervised days, i.e., small group rotation), students learn to map a region with high relief where the rocks are highly deformed, and field observation and spatial data are highly complementary. Total immersion in fieldwork allows for supervised work and monitoring of the student's daily work.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 2 hours (introduction to basic concepts)

Tutorial: 10 hours (3 hours of GIS, 7 hours of image analysis and section construction)

Fieldwork: 60 hours (12 hours in St Martin, 48 hours in Digne)

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We will study the main external and internal processes that contribute to the shaping of landforms:

• Weathering process
• Wind processes and landscapes
• River processes and river landscapes
• Glacial and periglacial processes and landscapes
• Tectonic and structural geomorphology
• Slope process
• Karst landscape

Hours per week:

CM: 9 p.m.

Practical work: 9 hours x 2 groups

Field: 6 hours x 3 groups

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The Earth system is often described as a series of overlapping layers, starting from the central core and extending to the most remote areas at the edge of space. It can also be thought of as a system where rocks, water, air, and life coexist. The Earth system first forms a whole, whose components are largely interconnected at all scales of time and space.

The Earth-Environment module explores the connections between the main components of the Earth system: the solid earth, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere. Its aim is to describe and explain some of the most striking interactions and to show the extent to which these complex processes and interactions control our entire environment, including our daily lives, our safety (natural hazards and disasters), and the prospects for human survival on Earth.

Hours per week:

CM: 30  

TD: 30   

TP: 12

This represents 72 hours of classroom time. This equates to 48 teaching blocks of 1.5 hours (20 lecture blocks, 20 tutorial blocks, and 8 practical blocks).

The module is organized as a short introductory lecture followed by the following three thematic blocks, which follow one another in the module schedule:

1. Inner Earth
2. External soil and geological hazards
3. External Earth, hydrosphere, and risks

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The Geodynamics EU combines the presentation, study, and characterization of the major processes associated with the geodynamics of the solid Earth: mantle dynamics, plate tectonics, plate boundaries (breakaways, subductions, collisions, oceanic expansion), and intraplate domains. These systems and processes are studied through natural examples at the scale of the crust and lithosphere, with an emphasis on integrating the various data and tools used in Earth sciences (geophysics, geochemistry, structural geology, rock mechanics, petrology, etc.). NB: the hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere are not covered.

The lectures are combined with tutorials focused on analyzing and summarizing documents in order to characterize geodynamic processes, drawing on concepts covered in geosciences since the first semester.

Hourly volumes:

CM: 3 p.m.

TD: 9 p.m.

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