Prospecting for fossils in a flight (Mustang) suit during a brief reconn stopover adds to the feeling of being on another planet.
Research at the Jackson School occurs across themes (described below) that encompass the entire Earth system and other planetary bodies in our solar system. The six broad themes explore the linkages between earth processes and systems, and bring the fundamental geoscience disciplines together in a way that encourages collaboration and interdisciplinary research.
We encourage students to get involved with research at every academic stage, including undergraduate students. There are ample opportunities to work with experts at each of our three world-class research units. The researchers across these units are leaders in their field, and often work on the frontiers between disciplines where major developments are taking place. Ongoing work includes:
NASA collaborations to explore Mars and Jupiter’s moon Europa and help forecast dangerous floods and droughts here on Earth;
The most comprehensive public study of the nation’s largest shale plays;
Research of natural disasters soon after they occur through the school’s Rapid Response Program;
Research on potential fuel source methane hydrate in the Gulf of Mexico, funded by an $80 million DOE grant;
Creating and operating a seismic monitoring network (TexNet) across Texas to track earthquake activity;
Sampling the Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico, the impact site left by the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs;
Researchers from the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) have helped discover the first subglacial lakes ever found in the Canadian High Arctic. The two…
Research conducted by The University of Texas at Austin and University of California, Berkeley has found that a little-studied, underground layer of rock can hold…
Research led by The University of Texas at Austin has found that calculations of water storage in many river basins from commonly used global computer…
Geologists use zircon mineral grains to reconstruct what the Earth and its landscapes looked like in ancient times. These microscopic grains, commonly the width of…
Pumping carbon dioxide deep under the seafloor may seem like a science-fiction-based solution to dealing with the greenhouse gas, but it’s a technology that The…
Two new studies from The University of Texas at Austin have significantly improved scientists’ ability to predict the strength and duration of droughts caused by…
The Jackson School of Geosciences’ Brian Horton is the inaugural recipient of the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM) William R. Dickinson Award. The award, which…
Slow slip events, a type of slow motion earthquake that occurs over days to weeks, are thought to be capable of triggering larger, potentially damaging…
