Research
Research in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences includes a wide range of investigations into the way the Earth works and the processes that shape our evolving planet. Opportunities are available for students to work with our faculty in the following areas:
Research Concentrations
We explore, reconstruct, and forecast climate change over timescales of decades to millennia, including both natural and human factors; ice sheet dynamics, deep groundwater systems, and sea level rise are central to this endeavor.
We explore how coastlines and estuaries evolve as river output, ocean currents, human engineering practices, and sea level rise combine to shape these dynamic—and densely populated—interfaces between the land and sea.
We explore how, where, and why earthquakes occur from the most active plate margins, to seemingly quiet continental interiors, and to human-induced seismicity.
We use the geochemical record of earth materials – rocks, minerals, sediments, ice, water – to reconstruct and trace earth processes on timescales of decades to billions of years.
We explore how the landsurface is shaped where sediments are created, transported, and deposited by natural and anthropogenic processes, including the use of the sedimentary record to reconstruct past conditions and processes.
We use the tools of physics and computational modeling to understand how the earth works in the present and in the past, and how physical earth processes effect chemical, biological, and societal systems.
We explore how rocks form from volcanoes, magma chambers, mountain building, subduction, and ore-forming systems, and how those rocks record the chemical and physical processes and conditions of Earth’s interior.
We explore the physical, chemical, and biological processes that effect the oceans, including the evolution of oceanic lithosphere, coastlines, and the role of climate change in marine chemistry and ecosystems.
We explore how the solid earth deforms, both brittle and ductile, at lengthscales of nanometers to kilometers, and how the rock record can be used to reconstruct past Earth deformation.
We explore the physical and chemical processes in the crust and mantle involved in the motion of Earth’s plates, and surface manifestations thereof; dynamic topography, earthquakes, and whole Earth chemical cycles are part of this endeavor.

Weston Observatory
The Weston Observatory is a research and science education center that operates a 16-station regional seismic network that records data on earthquakes in the northeast, as well as distant earthquakes. The facility offers students a unique opportunity to work on exciting projects with modern, sophisticated, scientific research equipment in a number of different areas of scientific and environmental interest.