The great demographic shift underway in many developed nations is impacting the geosciences extraordinarily hard.  We examine the situation in the United States as an example of how there are four clear overarching issues to establishing a sustainable geosciences workforce: Carrying Capacity of the Educational Sector, the fundamentals of meeting future demand, the issue of graduate quality, and the emerging challenge of sustaining the capacity building of future geoscientist generations.  The United States currently hosts about half of all geoscientists globally and is facing the imminent,

The academic geoscience community has been agitated over recent high-profile geosciences department closures and near-closures.  In response to the clear challenges that the geosciences traditionally face – low enrollments of majors, high departmental operating costs, and poor articulation of the departments’ mission – many geosciences departments over the last 30 years have evolved in name and nature to survive.  One persistent phenomena since the decoupling of the resource industry and U.S.

In many other science and engineering fields, the professional society is a key component of the student culture during their education.  Students in fields such as physics, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering are usually expected to be members and active participants in their respective professional society, which in turn is tightly integrated with the academic programs through student chapters or activities.   This phenomenon does not readily exist in the geosciences, and may be part of the reason for above average student attrition rates and subcompetitive recruitment over the

One aspect of assessing the undergraduate curriculum is recognizing that the exit vector of the student is a metric in the absence of a structured assessment program. Detailed knowledge across all geosciences departments regarding the disposition of their recent baccalaureate recipients has been at best inconsistent, and in the case of about half of geoscience programs, non-existent. However, through examining of multiple datasets, a pattern of disposition of geosciences BS recipients emerges, providing a snapshot of the system-wide response to the system-wide "average" program.

The geosciences, like all technical fields in the developed world, are facing a critical talent shortage. The retirement of the Baby-Boomers is now playing out and the long feared brain-drain is underway.   At the same time, relative enrollments in technical fields is declining, and absolute enrollments are, at best, remaining steady in the geosciences. The current supply is orders of magnitude insufficient to meet the rising demand for new geosciences workers, and when evaluated for quality, the pool is even smaller.

When discussing workforce issues, particularly in terms of the near and mid-term future, understanding the issue of supply dynamics and the immediate vectors into meeting demand are critical.   These are areas in which the American Geological Institute has tracked for over 50 years, and is currently expanding the scope and intensity of analysis.   The issue of supply dynamics in the geosciences is more complex than most of the community recognizes.  The field is naturally interdisciplinary and so too is the pool of entrants to the workforce and the viable and sustained source of new geoscie

The geosciences, like most technical professions, are facing a critical talent gap into the future, with too few new students entering the profession and too many opportunities for that supply.  This situation has evolved as a result of multiple forces, including increased commodity prices, greater strain on water resources, development encroachment on hazardous terrain, and the attrition of Baby Boomers from the workforce.  Demand is not the only issue at hand, the legacy of lagging supplies of new students and consequently new professionals has enhanced the problem.   The supply issue is