Research Focus Solid Earth and Geomaterials

The Earth is alive: tectonic plates spread apart along mid-ocean ridges and form deep-sea trenches or monumental mountain ranges where they collide. How do these fascinating landscapes develop? How fast and by what underlying processes does this take place? These are some of the questions that drive our research. We do detailed seafloor mapping and geophysical surveys to find out about plate motions and related magmatism. We extract minerals containing radioactive clocks and get them to tell us how fast they came up to the surface. We attempt to understand how interactions between water and rock form new minerals and dissolve others. Zeolites form where water and rock interact; they are important Earth materials used in countless technological applications. The rocky foundation of our restless planet holds plentiful other resources that are cornerstone of our society.

Research Programs and Structures

Research Groups and their Core Areas