Address
Type
Email
Telephone
NO D 51.3
Sonneggstr. 5
CH-8092 Zurich
Switzerland
Type
Research
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Telephone
+41 44 632 35 02
Website
Activities
Activities
Earth system sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and University of Zurich (UZH) work for a deeper understanding of all domains of our home planet, from the inner Earth to the continents, oceans, biosphere and atmosphere.
We study structures from the atomic scale to the planetary scale, and try to understand the evolution of the planet in the past , as well as current and future processes.
This understanding is of increasing importance for our civilization: mankind has an increasing influence on “system Earth” at both a regional and global level. Earth’s future evolution, as well as availability of resources such as petroleum and fresh water, and storage of radioactive waste or carbon dioxide is challenges currently requiring solutions.
In order to accomplish our goals we employ tools such as laboratory experiments, extensive field campaigns, computational simulations and remote sensing, for example by satellites.
The Earth serves as a laboratory and an archive that can be used to understand long-term processes, which are often challenging to decipher, Investigations of this archive, which includes volcanic rocks, deep-sea sediments and ice-sheets in which long-term changes have been preserved, can prove valuable to understand our current problems: “the past is the key to the future”.