Research
Visit our news page for up to the minute examples of research going on in EAPS. You can also browse recent papers here.
In terms of the range of disciplines encompassed, EAPS is arguably the broadest of MIT's science departments. Our studies concern everything from the very center of the Earth more than 4000 miles beneath our feet to the character of planets far outside our own solar system, and the myriad structures and processes in between on time and space scales spanning more than 10 orders of magnitude.
Our research is fundamental in nature, but it underpins many of the most pressing societal questions of our time: climate and environmental change; natural hazards; natural resources; the origins of life both here on Earth, and elsewhere.
Here we subdivide EAPS research into eight distinguishable categories: atmospheric science, climate, geobiology, geochemistry, geology, geophysics, oceanography, and planetary science. Much of our research is interdisciplinary so you will see many of our people appearing in multiple categories.
Bridging these categories are several self-directed research Institute, Centers, Laboratories and Initiatives within or intersecting EAPS.
- Center for Global Change Science
- Earth Resources Laboratory
- Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
- Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
- Lorenz Center
Within and overlying these are multiple groups arising from interdisciplinary collaborations across faculty and senior research groups among them:
- Atmospheric Chemistry at MIT
- Darwin Project
- EQSci - Earthquake Science at MIT
- Experimental Petrology Lab
- MIT Isotope Lab
- MIT NASA Astrobiology Node
- MIT General Circulation Model (MITgcm)
- Planetary Astronomy Laboratory
- Planetary Spectroscopy Group
Institute wide organisations with significant EAPS involvement include: