FWIW I have a BES and MSc in geography (focusing on GIS and remote sensing with numerous ecology, geology, climatology course sets to back it all up). My programs offered BA and MA (and MES) and you basically got to pick which you wanted to earn with very minimal (think 1-3 different courses) differences on how far you went towards the "human geography" vs. "physical geography" angles. A lot of similar geography programs in Ontario were also BA degrees despite being plenty heavy in "hard" sciences.

Obviously can't speak for parent's case (and I recognize geography is not geology), who has provided a very nice answer, but I wanted to just throw out there that sometimes it's all kind of... nebulous.