The capacity of the Earth’s crust to supply raw materials and energy is directly linked to plate tectonics, including variations on geological time scales. While probing kilometers deep into ancient crust on the continents, we are also venturing out-to-sea to explore the role of active tectonics in the location of mineral and energy resources globally.
The challenges we are addressing are to improve the understanding of the deep structure of the Earth and its geological hazards and to identify the deep resources needed to replace exhausted near-surface deposits. This “deep revolution” is a response to growing demand for resources and the necessity to limit our impact on the near-surface environment.
iMAGE-CREATE students are learning to reveal the structure, composition, and physical and chemical properties of the Deep Earth using a wide range of observational approaches and platforms, including complex time-series studies, use of natural laboratories, new data integration and analytics, and numerical modeling.
