Department of Geosciences

Research Focus: Dynamics of Earth-System Components

The Earth System consists of interacting components, resulting in dynamic self organization across scales. The dynamics of individual Earth-System components affect other components and contribute to the emergence of effective behavior on larger scales, up to the entire globe.

Research in the Department of Geosciences studies Earth-System dynamics on a wide range of scales both in space and time, facilitating an integrative view of the planet that we live on.

Selected Topics of the Research Focus "Dynamics of Earth-System Components"

Tectonics and dynamics of the upper mantle and crust, resulting in properties of magmatic & metamorphic rocks, hydrothermal systems, and volcanoes

Interplay of tectonics, climate, and erosion in land-surface evolution

Deep-time processes such as the emergence of molecular oxygen in the atmosphere and its effetcs

Weathering, nutrient cycling, and soil formation

Climate dynamics on regional to global spatial scales and geological to historical time scales

Glacier and ice-sheet dynamics

Subsurface flow and transport

Dynamics of the atmospheric boundary layer

Sediment dynamics in rivers