Harvard offers outstanding opportunities for students who wish to pursue studies in Earth and planetary sciences. Research and course work in the Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS) department encompass a broad range of science disciplines, technology, and applications to environmental and economic endeavors. These studies involve students in the development and application of new tools and technologies, state-of-the-art computational modeling of a wide range of Earth planetary processes, and field work in remote and challenging settings.
These are intellectually exciting times for the Earth and planetary sciences, which are of unprecedented importance to contemporary society. Our environment is increasingly subject to stresses placed upon it. As never before, we have an imperative to better understand the consequences of human activities for the Earth’s atmosphere, the oceans, the solid Earth, and the organisms that live on it. Exploring for, extracting, and conserving natural resources are vital to the global political economy. We must mitigate the ill effects of earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, and climate change by learning to predict their time and place. Moreover, new technologies, datasets and computational capacity are allowing us to better understand the functioning of Earth systems and the interplay between tectonics, climate, and life. Departmental Website