EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES

The Earth Surface Processes group at Penn State studies the nature of physical, chemical, and biologic processes that operate at and on the surface and seeks to understand the dynamic ways in which these processes interact. Our investigations span a wide range of temporal and spatial scales and typically integrate multiple disciplines. Selected examples of ongoing investigations include: 1) physical, chemical and biologic controls on chemical weathering, 2) climatic and sedimentologic controls on annual fluvial incision rates in Taiwan, and 3) internal dynamics of ice sheets and their relationship to global climate, and 4) the evolution of topography in the Indo-Asian collision zone.

Recognizing that, to a large degree, the geologic evolution of the earth system can be viewed as a manifestation of the complex interactions operating at the interface between the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere, most of our faculty have strong ties to other research groups in the department, including Global Change and Earth History, Hydrogeosciences, Ice and Climate, Sedimentary Geology, Solid Earth and Applied Geophysics, and Tectonics and Geodynamics