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Explore Earth Systems

Part 1: Explore the Earth

Part 2: Explore Atmospheres

Part 3: Explore Earth's Mysteries

Questions & Answers

Prof. Kip Hodges, PhD '82 Leads the Continental Tectonics research group

Sherri Hitz, SM '98 Expedition biologist, freelance biology writer, and a marine naturalist

Cameron Wobus Using tools like thermochronology in the Continental Tectonics group

Danielle Morse '02 Member of MIT's winning weather forecasting team

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Explore Earth Systems

Solid earth scientists like geophysicists and fluid earth experts like atmospheric scientists used to travel independent pathways to understanding the planet. Today Earth scientists across disciplines collaborate with civil engineers and biologists. Economists, management experts, and political scientists join policy debates. At MIT, new partnerships are examining how the Earth works and how humans can live lightly on the planet.

At MIT, Mission 2006, a special first-year course aimed at solving complex problems, will focus this fall on Terrascope, an interdisciplinary effort to understand and preserve the Amazon River Basin. Terascope is the project of Earth System Initiative, a new interdisciplinary effort to apply MIT resources to mitigating the effects of human activity on the planet.

New England's volatile weather may have proved a solid training ground for the MIT forecasting team. This spring students and researchers from the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate's beat 30 colleges to win first prize in the National Collegiate Weather Forecasting Contest---for the second year.

• Explore the Earth: Earth System Initiative, Mission 2006: Terrascope, continental tectonics, landscape erosion model, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, geotechnical engineering, digital geology, Share A Vital Earth.
• Explore Atmospheres: forecasting team, Synopic Laboratory, chemistry of the ozone hole, nature's atmospheric cleaner, Global Change Science, Climate Modeling Initiative, flagpole lab, Who Owns the Sky?
• Explore Earth's Mysteries: Archaeology and Ancient Technology, AustrialiaQuest biology, Deep Sea Archaeology, electronic field notebook, quantum positioning, Mission 2004: Mars, Mission 2005: Atlantis.

Also see openDOOR from July/August 2001: Oceans' Embrace

Poll: Which earth system would you most like to explore? Himalayas Aegean Sea Antarctica Carlsbad caverns Amazon rainforest