The disciplines of physical geography and quaternary geology overlap in the study of earth's surficial processes. Faculty and students in the Geosciences Department have active research programs in Active Tectonics, Biogeography, Climatology, Ecosystem Informatics Geomorphology, Paleoclimatology, and Hydrology.Faculty conducting research in this field include: Brook, Clark, Daly, Frenkel, Grant, Jackson, Jones, Lancaster, Matzke, Meigs, Nolin, Rosenfeld, Santelmann , Woods and Wright. Faculty involved from other departments include Noller (Crop and Soil Science) and McDonnell (Forest Engineering). Many Geosciences faculty members are also involved with the Watershed Processes Group and the Institute for Water and Watersheds on campus.

Several faculty with interests in Paleoclimatology (Clark, Brook, Hostetler) actively collaborate with paleoclimate researchers in COAS, and are participating in a major new initiative, Paleovar, to study climate variability.

There are also strong linkages with the OSU Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology (EBB) program.

Prospective students are invited to examine faculty specific research activity through connections found in the Faculty section of our website. Perusing the Student Theses and Student Publications sections provides evidence of specific directions of surficial processes research over time.