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Geoscience Impacts Nearly Every Aspect of Our Lives

From sustainable energy and climate change, to earthquakes, volcanoes, rivers and glaciers, from the origin of life on Earth to the potential for life on other planets, we lead in educating and inspiring the next generation of scientists.

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Degrees and Programs

The Department of Earth and Space Sciences offers an expansive educational experience. We provide a rigorous interdisciplinary program in which students develop an understanding of the fundamentals of Earth, space, and planetary sciences, and learn relevant skills for a variety of careers.

Research in Earth and Space Sciences

The Earth and space sciences — geology, geophysics, geobiology and geochemistry — play a critical and unique role in the advancement of knowledge, improvement of the quality of life, and in understanding humanity’s place in the universe. Research in Earth and space sciences draws on methods and theory from chemistry, physics, biology and computational sciences.

Faculty in our department are concerned both with fundamental research and with the dissemination of Earth-science knowledge in the service of society.

Limited resources, geologic hazards, and related environmental change are among the most serious challenges we face.  We use our expertise to provide the training and education required to address these challenges, and we are engaged in serious efforts to include a more diverse community of scientists, students and stakeholders than in the past.

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News

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Dave Montgomery’s new book “ReGen” included in UW News faculty book round-up

In “REGEN: A New Future For Farming, Food, and Health,” David R. Montgomery, professor of Earth and space sciences at the UW, lays out practical and productive solutions to recover the health of our land through soil-building regenerative agriculture. Drawing on the work of farmers, historians and researchers, he articulates the power of rebuilding soil health by minimizing or avoiding physical and chemical disturbance of the soil, such as through combining cover cropping, no- or low-tillage and crop diversity.

Read more at UW News
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How salmon evolved to cope with the ice age

Most salmon migrate from the sea into fresh water to spawn. This became difficult during the last Ice Age, when populations of salmon were cut off from icebound spawning grounds. A study recently published in Quaternary Research, led by fisherman-scientist Patrick Martin, used genetic analyses of more than 32,000 chum salmon to suggest that some populations survived the last Ice Age isolated in freshwater glacial lakes. The researchers propose that salmon trapped in these lakes treated them like miniature oceans, migrating up glacial streams to spawn. This prolonged isolation could explain the unusually high genetic divergence and distinctive life-history traits observed in some populations in Alaska and the Salish Sea. UW researchers David Montgomery, Harvey Greenberg, and Ralph Haugerud are co-authors.

Read more on The Economist
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