The "Crustal Geophysics" research group studies the tectonics and geodynamics of the lithosphere, typically focusing on continental lithosphere that is currently or recently deforming and evolving. We use controlled-source reflection and refraction seismology on land and at sea, and a wide range of passive seismological analyses (shear-wave splitting, receiver-function analysis, surface-wave inversion) as necessary to address the chosen problems. Recent and ongoing areas of investigation are the Himalaya-Tibet orogen, the East Africa Rift, the western margin of the Basin-&-Range Province, and the Mariana arc-backarc system.

Environmental Geophysics is the use of geophysical methods to image and understand the properties and processes in the top ~100 meters of the earth. This is the region of the earth that has a direct and daily impact on our lives (and on which we have a direct and daily impact!) yet we know surprising little about this near-surface region. Our work in environmental geophysics involves laboratory studies, theoretical modeling, and field work. We use these three different approaches to investigate the links between the geophysical parameters that we can measure and the physical, chemical and biological properties and processes of interest. Many of our research projects can be described as “hydrogeophysics” – using geophysics to address problems in hydrogeology.

Radar Interferometry investigates the Earth and solar system using radar remote sensing techniques. Our main interests include InSAR imaging, Earth exploration from space, satellite remote sensing, planetary science, digital signal processing for geoscience applications, and EM scattering and propagation. We are multidisciplinary and housed jointly in the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Geophysics. Students interested in pursuing research in these areas are encouraged to apply through either of these departments.

The Stanford Radio Glaciology research group focuses on the subglacial and englacial conditions of rapidly changing ice sheets and the use of ice penetrating radar to study them and their potential contribution to the rate of sea level rise.

The Stanford Exploration Project (SEP) is an industry-funded academic consortium whose purpose is to improve the theory and practice of constructing 3-D and 4-D images of the earth from seismic echo soundings. Although most of our research is targeted at improvements in the geophysical survey contracting industry, about half of our sponsors and alumni are in the petroleum industry because we focus on overcoming technological limitations of the geophysical survey industry. SEP pioneered innovations in migration imaging, velocity estimation, dip moveout and slant stack. Today our focus is on 3-D seismic applications such as velocity estimation, wavefield-continuation prestack migration, multidimensional image estimation, and 4-D (time-lapse) reservoir monitoring. Besides 3-D reflection seismic data, we undertake small 2-D imaging projects with geophysical data of all kinds. The diversity of applications exercises our judgment and skill at combining fundamentals of statistical signal theory, optimization theory, numerical analysis, and wave propagation theory, and this has led us to numerous improvements and some breakthroughs. We organize our research to facilitate technology transfer by using a formal method of makefile rules. With these, most of our research results are verified by someone other than the original researcher. Research progress reports at least three years old and all PhD theses are made available to the public through our web site.

The research at the Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory focuses on experiments designed to understand the connections between geophysical properties measured at the surface of the Earth or within boreholes with the intrinsic properties of rocks – i.e., mineralogy, porosity, pore fluids, stress conditions, and the overall rock architecture such as laminations, fractures, and the intricate pore network.

The Stress and Crustal Mechanics group uses knowledge of the state of stress in the Earth and the mechanical properties of Earth materials to investigate a variety of geophysical problems. These problems cover a variety of scales, ranging from pore scale processes and the mechanical behavior of reservoir-scale faults, to the strength of the lithosphere and the mechanics of major plate bounding faults such as the San Andreas.