The Department has a wide range of research groups that concentrate on diverse topics.

GEOCHEMISTRY

Center for Isotope Geochemistry
The Center consists of solid-source mass spectrometry and clean chemistry laboratories on campus and facilities for stable isotopic measurements, rare gas isotope mearsurements, and cosmogenic isotope measurements at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Research using the Nd, Sr, Pb, Ca, O, H, C, He, Ne, Be, and Al isotopes is directed toward studies of geological and hydrological processes and the structure and evolution of the oceans, the mantle, and the continental crust.

The Berkeley Geochronology Center
The Berkeley Geochronology Center (BGC) is a non-profit scientific research institution dedicated to establishing the history of the Earth, its various inhabitants, and its interactions with the rest of our Solar System, throughout the 4.6 billion years of our Planet's existence. Using the most advanced technology available, BGC scientists determine the ages of rocks and other materials to date important events in geological and biological history.

Berkeley Geomicrobiology Group
The Geomicrobiology group investigates the ways in which microorganism-mineral interactions shape the Earth's near surface environments, now and over geologic time.  Research programs integrate molecular microbiology, mineralogy, and geochemistry to tackle a wide diversity of topics including microbial biomineralization, size-dependent properties and reactivity of nanophase biomineral and chemical weathering products, biological and geochemical contributions to granite weathering and landscape development, acidophiles and acid mine drainage formation, biologically-impacted metal cycling in groundwater, and microbial evolution in extreme environments.

Laboratory for Environmental and Sedimentary Geochemistry
In the Laboratory for Environmental and Sedimentary Geochemistry, we are documenting past changes environmental and climatic conditions, including changes in salinity, stream flow, temperature, ocean circulation, and coastal upwelling at various locations, using environmentally sensitive isotopes (oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, strontium, and sulfur) and elements (such as Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca), contained in fossils, sediments, and other natural climate archives. We apply similar methods to studying modern environments, using Sr and light stable isotopes (O, C, N, H and S) as tracers. These analyses are made with our new GV IsoPrime gas source mass spectrometer, MultiPrep, and elemental analyzer, housed in McCone 155. The laboratory also houses a computer-controlled micromill for very high-resolution sampling across incrementally banded or deposits growth layers (such as coral, mollusks, fish otolith growth bands, or growth bands in speleothem deposits), as well as sediment sampling and sample preparation laboratories, and a cold room, petrographic and binocular microscopes, and a computer lab. The laboratories are located on the first floor of McCone Hall (rooms 115, 119, and 155).

GEOPHYSICS

Berkeley Seismological Laboratory
The Berkeley Seismological Laboratory (BSL) is an Organized Research Unit of U. C. Berkeley with a long history in seismology and earthquake information. Since the installation of the first seismograph in the western hemisphere, in 1887, the BSL, formerly Seismographic Stations, has been involved in operating seismic and other geophysical networks in central and northern California (presently: Berkeley Digital Seismic Network, Hayward Fault Network, High Resolution Seismic Network at Parkfield, and Bay Area Regional Deformation Network), in earthquake information dissemination (Rapid Earthquake Data Integration Project) and data archival and distribution (Northern California earthquake Data Center). The BSL houses active research programs in local, regional and global seismology and tectonics.

GEODYNAMICS

Center for Computational Seismology
Within the Earth Sciences Division at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory is a facility for modern seismological research which relies heavily upon intensive computational analysis (e.g., acoustic imaging, 3D wave propagation, high resolution inverse earthquake analyses) or large database manipulations. The center is used in a number of Ph.D. and postdoctoral research studies.

The Engineering Geoscience Group
The Group teaches and does research in Applied Geophysics. It is an integral part of the Department of Materials Science and Mineral Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley where the academic aspects of the group's activities are administered. The group formed originally, in 1962, to study and encourage the use of geophysical methods in mineral and petroleum exploration programs. Recently, however, our attention has shifted to the more general topic of subsurface mapping and imaging. While research in resource exploration topics is still actively pursued, our activities now include work on methodology and instrument development for a variety of near surface applications related to the resolution of geotechnical and environmental problems.

GEOLOGY

Berkeley Geomorphology Group
Geomorphology at Berkeley prospers because of the diversity of strong research programs across the campus and because of a commitment to undergraduate teaching and graduate training. The core faculty consist of Kurt Cuffey (Geography), William Dietrich and Jim Kirchner (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences). Their research programs (found on this web page) tackle a wide range of topics including glacier mechanics, paleoclimate analysis, environmental geochemistry, landscape evolution, hillslope erosion mechanics, flvuial processes, restoration geomorphology, and biologic extinctions and evolutionary processes.

Active Tectonics Group
Welcome to the Active Tectonics Research Group at UC Berkeley. We are part of the Department of Earth and Planetary Science and are affiliated with the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. Our research focuses on problems relating to fault zone processes and crustal deformation. Our approach is interdisciplinary, integrating geodetic, geomorphic, geologic, and seismological observations along with theoretical modeling.

ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE

The Center for Atmospheric Sciences
Earth is unique among the planets because of the ubiquity and diversity of life. Life interacts with geochemical cycles to control atmospheric composition, which in turn determines the radiative and thermal forcing for the circulation and climate of the planet. The study of Earth's atmosphere must therefore encompass interactions with the biosphere and how one species, humans, alter the natural cycles and long-term trajectory of the planet.