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The geosciences lag other STEM fields when it comes to racial and ethnic representation. A two-year, $295,000 grant from the National Science Foundation aims to address this issue by encouraging more Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students to pursue research and careers in the geosciences.

In a video series titled “Perspective: Leaders at Penn State,” Lee Kump, John Leone Dean in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State, reflects on his love for diving as an opportunity to experience the joy of discovery — and to come back with your eyes wide open.

Finding one’s identity throughout college and beyond can be challenging for many, but through embracing her unique heritage, Esther Muñoz is making her way.

The dusty surface of the moon — immortalized in images of Apollo astronauts’ lunar footprints — formed as the result of asteroid impacts and the harsh environment of space breaking down rock over millions of years. An ancient layer of this material, covered by periodic lava flows and now buried under the lunar surface, could provide new insight into the Moon’s deep past, according to a team of scientists.

What do a tiny nation off the coast of West Africa, a plastics pollution problem in Pittsburgh, and the indigenous Iñupiat people of Alaska all have in common?

Earl “Skip” Lenker is passionate about lifelong learning. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1956 and earning his doctorate in geosciences from Penn State in 1964, the lifelong educational journey continued.

 Understanding how climate change will affect the flooding of rivers may become easier with a new framework for assessing flood risk that's been developed by an interdisciplinary team from Penn State.

Susan Brantley, professor of geosciences and director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, was selected to receive the inaugural Dr. Hubert Barnes and Dr. Mary Barnes Professorship in Geosciences.

A recently dedicated lab at Penn State bears the name of a longtime geosciences faculty member who used isotope geochemistry to better understand processes deep within the Earth.

The Peter Deines Isotope Mass Spectrometry Laboratory was dedicated on Oct. 28 in a ribbon-cutting ceremony officiated by Penn State President Eric Barron, Geosciences Department Head Andrew Nyblade, Evan Pugh University Professor Katherine Freeman, John Leone Dean in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS) Lee Kump, Melissa Deines, wife of the late Peter Deines, Senior Vice President for Research Lora Weis and Emeritus Professor and Former Associate Dean of the college’s Office of Graduate Education and Research John Hellmann.

The mechanism behind one of the first stages of coal creation may not be what has long been thought, according to a team of researchers who found that microbes were responsible for coal formation and production of methane. The finding has implications for methane fuel recovery from some coal fields.