Natural Resources
- Geothermal Energy
- Hydrogeology + Water Resources
- Subsurface Energy
- Carbon Sequestration
- Geological Hydrogen Storage
- Mineralogy
Questions That Drive Us
How can we meet humanity’s need for energy and natural resources while maintaining Earth’s habitability? Can we harness the heat of the Earth in the form of geothermal energy? Is it possible to capture and store carbon emissions safely underground? How can we help communities find and protect water resources?
The Work We Do
Much of our work is conducted by the Earth Resources Laboratory, MIT’s home for geophysical research into the sustainable use of the Earth for the demands of communities tomorrow.
Geophysics has a substantial role to play in the transition toward a fully decarbonized society. Topics we investigate include:
- Innovations in subsurface imaging
- Groundwater management
- Geological carbon sequestration and hydrogen storage
- Understanding earthquakes induced by industrial activity
- Environmental monitoring
- Harnessing geothermal energy
- Advanced computer modeling, combining fundamental and experimental geophysics with scientific computing, inference, and machine learning
