In the Geophysics Program at MIT, we develop advanced tools and use them to address frontier questions. MIT geophysicists are leaders in obtaining and interpreting observations from arrays of geodetic and seismic instruments. These arrays provide data crucial for understanding geodynamic processes. For example, the 1999 earthquakes in Turkey occurred in the middle of GPS networks installed by MIT scientists and their colleagues. We also take advantage of data produced by others, including consortia such as IRIS and the Southern California Earthquake Center.
Theory is an essential component of Geophysics.
Our expertise ranges from hydrodynamics, to statistical physics, to nonlinear dynamics and complex systems, to theoretical seismology and to geodynamics. Laboratory experiments are crucial for investigating processes at the high pressures and temperatures that characterize Earth processes. EAPS lab studies range from studies of rock friction through the range of slip rates characteristic of earthquake nucleation, to the regime of the brittle-ductile transition, to the high temperature environment where melts interact with a deforming matrix, to pressures characteristic of the transition zone. Numerical experiments become increasingly important as computer power increases and as our observational database grows exponentially. Examples include three-dimensional models of mantle convection, viscoelastic relaxation through the seismic, cycle and multiphase flow through porous media.