Faculty members are involved in domestic and international field studies including:
- Characterizing the hydrology of melting glaciers in Alaska, Svalbard, and Nepal
- Petrology of supervolcanoes in New Zealand and US
- Landslide and flood hazards in El Salvador
- Volcanic seismicity in Guatemala and Chile
- Transport and observation of atmospheric pollutants in remote locations like Greenland and the Azores
- Volcanic degassing in Indonesia and Costa Rica
- Monitoring the water quality of lakes via Remote Sensing
Moreover, the field activities are coupled with advanced satellite and ground-based remote sensing work such as studying optical properties for water quality studies in Lake Superior and the Bering Sea. High-performance computers are used to study atmospheric-terrestrial interactions in the face of climate change and impacts of anthropogenic activities on climate. Department laboratories are equipped and operated to support the field and modeling studies including seismic petrophysics, rock and mineral preparation and visualization, environmental magnetism, aquatic optics and remote sensing, and geo-hazard and geo-resource characterization. In addition, some of our faculty members are conducting research from the Great Lakes Research Center.