EPL scientist stands at the edge of a volcano

Discovering new materials at the frontier of human knowledge

We aim to discover new worlds, observe and understand the path from dust and gas to planets, illuminate the history and inner workings of Earth and other planets and understand how their surface environments form and evolve, determine the properties of planetary materials at the extreme pressures and temperatures of planetary interiors and create new materials of benefit to mankind.

Tim Strobel in the laser lab

A collaborative approach

We combine a broad range of traditional disciplines to investigate fundamental questions ranging from the galactic to the atomic in scale, and which are best solved by integrating the many viewpoints of our scientists that together reveal the complexity and interconnectivity of the processes that determined the current state of Earth and other planets.

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Old Lab Photo from GL

Our rich research history

The Earth and Planets Laboratory unites two Carnegie departments (the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism and the Geophysical Laboratory) with century-long traditions of making new observations of the natural world, experimentally investigating the properties of the material from which it is made, and developing theory to understand complex natural phenomenon.

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