President's Page: The geophysical landscape in the Middle East

The Middle East has experienced dramatic changes since the discovery of oil in Persia (now Iran) in 1908 and in Saudi Arabia in 1938. The e history of geophysics in the Middle East can be traced back to about 600 BC. The golden years for geoscience graduates were in the mid-1970s to early 1990s. In the last decade, the number of geoscience students, especially geophysics students, has continued to decline due to the limited number of job offerings. Universities in the Middle East have sought to counteract the decreasing number of geoscience students by starting new programs that offer graduate students either a single- or a double-major degree. Some universities named it ‘double major’, while others named it ‘concentration program’.