Understanding the co-evolution of the atmosphere, the ocean, and the solid Earth is an important focus of research in Earth sciences. This line of inquiry is clearly relevant to society, particularly in light of ongoing global climate change. Researchers within the Earth Sciences department use a variety of methods to investigate the evolution of the Earth as a system on time scales from hundreds to billions of years.
Examples of questions being addressed include: How does climate influence weathering processes? How old is the polar ice sheet in Antarctica and how has climate varied in polar regions over geologic time? Is there a relationship between biological productivity in the oceans and climate? How do coastal barriers and tidal inlets respond to climate change? Does mountain building enhance climate change? How does the cycling and storage of CO2 within the solid Earth influence global climate on both geologic and human timescales?