The history of the department dates to 1879, when the Department of Economic Geology was established on 8th September at the Mining Academy in Příbram based on the imperial decree. Prof. František Pošepný stood at its birth. In 1951, the Department of Geology and Mineralogy was divided into the Department of Geology, Paleontology and Deposits and the Department of Mineralogy and Petrography within the Faculty of Mining. A new development occurred in 1954, when the Department of Geology and Paleontology and the Department of Mineralogy, Petrography and Mineral Deposits were founded at the Faculty of Geology at that time. In 1955, a new Department of Commercial Mineral Deposits was set aside. As part of the transformation of the faculty in 1994, the Institute of Geological Engineering was established by merging the following departments: Geology and Mineralogy, Applied Geology and Economic Geology. In 2018, the Institute was renamed to the Department of Geological Engineering.