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;
Determining how climate change is affecting water supplies is difficult in a state like California that swings between floods and droughts, but a new study…
Global warming is approaching a tipping point that during this century could reawaken an ancient climate pattern similar to El Niño in the Indian Ocean,…
A previously unknown significant source of carbon just discovered in the Arctic has scientists marveling at a once overlooked contributor to local coastal ecosystems –…
New research from The University of Texas at Austin has explained an important mystery about natural gas hydrate formations and, in doing so, advanced scientists’…
Subduction zones — places where one tectonic plate dives beneath another — are where the world’s largest and most damaging earthquakes occur. A new study…
Enough water will come from the ground as a byproduct of oil production from unconventional reservoirs during the coming decades to theoretically counter the need…
