News archive

"Super-wet" magmas play a critical role in forming large deposits of copper, a metal vital for modern technologies and society's shift to green energy.

While earthquakes cannot be deterministically predicted, operational earthquake forecasting systems can provide valuable insights into the likelihood of future quakes.

The underground is an important resource and storage location needed for the desired energy transition. In Switzerland, however, limited access to underground exploration data hinders a comprehensive resource assessment and planning, as much of the data is owned by private companies.

Marine algae are vital in capturing CO₂ from the atmosphere. As CO₂ levels rise, we need to understand how algae adapt, which could influence their productivity and the oceans ability to absorb CO₂.

Finding evidence of complex life elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy hinges on locating rocky planets with plate tectonics and a mixture of landmassses and oceans.

The famous biodiversity of the island of Madagascar owes much of its richness to geologic processes according to a new multidisciplinary study published in the journal Science.

Cara Magnabosco and her team study subsurface environments at BedrettoLab, focusing on simple life-forms like bacteria surviving by "breathing rocks". They explore conditions for life emergence and survival, discovering rare microorganisms and conducting experiments to understand their lifestyle.

Anna Mittelholz and Simon Stähler from the Department of Earth Sciences, together with Hendrik Kolvenbach from D-MAVT, are leading an international team that is proposing a cost-effective method for exploring lava tubes on the Moon.

ETH earth scientists have developed a new method for determining the age of cobalt mineralisation.

The Master's Graduation Ceremony of the Department of Earth Sciences took place on Friday, 1 December 2023. Congratulations to our successful graduates!

Yuhan Wang – Master's student in the Seismology and Wave Physics group – received an ESOP scholarship.

The Insel compartment of the Brienz landslide complex failed in the night of 15 June 2023 - one month after the village had been evacuated.

Nearly two years ago, the Hayabusa2 space probe returned samples from the asteroid Ryugu to Earth. Since then, international research teams - including members of ETH Zurich and the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS - have worked on analysing the valuable cargo. The results allow the scientists not only to reconstruct the history of Ryugu but also to shed light on the early development of the solar system.

A recent study published in Science brings new constraints on planet formation. It highlights the role of collisions in shaping planets and affecting their composition.

According to theory, the moon was created during a gigantic collision between the earth and another celestial body called Theia. But where did this body come from?