The Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Case Western Reserve University encompasses a wide range of teaching and learning opportunities into the physical, chemical, and biological processes that shape the earth and the planets. Earth science provides a lens for understanding properties of the earth’s interior, surface, and ecology.

With earth science as a focus, you can explore the history of the earth’s climate, the ecology of living and ancient organisms, and the comparative geology of other planets. Students can focus their studies and research in any number of areas. Faculty and students apply their geologic knowledge to resource conservation, land use planning, environmental geochemistry, hydrology, engineering construction works, and other environmental concerns. Faculty focus their research in four areas: surficial processes, planetary science, geochemistry, and sedimentary basin analysis. Application of these inquiries to understanding a planet’s evolution through time is a unique attribute of geological investigations.

Knowledge of the past and present reveals the constraints of our environment and serves as a guide for the future. The geological sciences are integrative – utilizing and incorporating aspects of biology, chemistry, physics and even the social sciences so that we can better understand our world.