Our research

Research in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences takes place within the UCL-Birkbeck Research School of Earth Sciences. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences was ranked third of all environment and earth science departments in the UK and was one of only three to have an average score higher than 3.0. All of our staff were ranked as 2* or better; 80% were ranked 3* or 4*.

Our research aims

• Our aim is to pursue world-class research into the processes at work on and within the Earth and planets. We seek to understand the past revealed by their investigation and understood in terms of the laws of physics, chemistry and biology.
• We aim to do so across the discipline, spanning the dynamics of the Earth and planets, the materials that compose them and their properties, present and past processes occurring at their surfaces, the evolution of life and the environment, and the applied geosciences of pollution, natural hazards and resources.
• Our research projects

Research areas

• Structure, Dynamics and Evolution of the Earth and Planets
• Dynamics and Evolution of the Crust
• Palaeoclimate, Palaeobiology and Palaeoenvironments
• Environmental Geochemistry
• Polar Climate Modelling and Change
• Natural Hazards