Department of Earth, Environmental & Planetary Sciences
Date
April 8, 2025
Upcoming Courses for Fall 2025
As we prepare for the Fall 2025 semester, DEEPS is proud to announce our upcoming course options.
We encourage you to learn about the Earth, environmental and planetary sciences and understand the natural world from a new perspective.
The DEEPS Graduate Program at Brown is one of the top programs in the world.
 | EEPS 0050 – Mars, Moon, and the EarthInstructor: John Mustard Space exploration has revealed an astonishing array of surface features on the planets and their satellites. Why are atmospheres on the planets different from Earth's atmosphere? Do other planets represent our past or future environment? Is there life on other planets? The planets and their histories are compared to gain insight and a new perspective on planet Earth. |
 | EEPS 0070 – Introduction to OceanographyInstructor: Steven Clemens This course examines the ocean's role in Earth's global environment, emphasizing the dynamical interaction of the ocean with the atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, and lithosphere. Focus on physical/chemical/biological systems' interconnections needed to understand natural and anthropogenic variability on various time and space scales, from El Niño to global warming. Three lectures, written exercises on oceanographic problems; two field trips to study estuarine and coastal processes. |
 | EEPS 0100 – Surviving the Apocalypse: Earth’s Journey Through Natural Disasters Past and PresentInstructor: Harriet Lau We take a 4.5 billion year tour through Earth’s major catastrophes and how life survived through it all. We reflect on our situation today, how we got here, and what ways geoengineering can steer us in the right(?) direction by applying lessons learned from Earth’s long past. |
 | EEPS 0160N – Monsters of the Abyss: Oceanography and Sea TalesInstructor: Baylor Fox-Kemper We will read from the logbooks of Cook, Darwin, Wallace, and Nansen. Their discoveries and expeditions inspired and were inspired by fiction that we will also read, including Moby Dick and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The daring successes and cannibalistic dooms of the Essex, Beagle, Terror, Challenger, and Fram inspired 19th century writers to imagine what lay far across and deep beneath the oceans. These retellings--fictional, narrative, and scientific--helped formulate and fund further research. Who risks their life for a bird, a map, a widow, or an eclipse? How would these scientists and their ideas do today? Enrollment limited to 19 first year students. |
 | EEPS 0220 – Understanding Earth and Environmental ProcessesInstructors: Karen Fischer & Greg Hirth How does plate tectonics create mountains, earthquakes and volcanoes? What processes drive climate change? How do humans exacerbate flooding? This course provides an introduction to the processes that shape the Earth’s surface, govern the structure of its interior, cause natural hazards, contribute to climate change and affect the human environment. Topics include interior processes (plate tectonics, mountain building, volcanism, earthquakes, flow of solid rocks), environmental processes (climate change, atmospheric and oceanic circulation, flow of rivers, glaciers, groundwater, water and energy resources), and the connections between them. Lectures are complemented by three labs, informal small-group study sessions, and field trips. Collaborative learning is encouraged. Enrollment is limited to 100. |
 | EEPS 0250 – Computational Approaches to Modelling and Quantitative Analysis in Natural Sciences: An IntroductionInstructor: Christian Huber Application of numerical analysis to mathematical modelling in the natural sciences including topics such as ground water and glacier flow, earthquakes, climate models, phase equilibrium, and population dynamics. Numerical methods will include the solution of linear algebraic systems of equations, numerical integration, solution of differential equations, time series analysis, statistical data analysis tools. Development of computer programming skills in the Matlab programming environment. Suggested prerequisites: MATH 0090, 0100; PHYS 0030, 0040, or 0050, 0060. |
 | EEPS 0830 – Water in Our WorldInstructor: Laurence Smith This course will focus on understanding natural and societal dimensions of the water cycle. The coming century will see substantial pressure on global water resources owing to increasing human demand, alteration of river systems, and climate change. The first half of the course introduces fundamental concepts in physical hydrological science, and the second explores human modifications and environmental problems associated with a perturbed water cycle. The topical sequence of the class will progress first through different components of the water cycle (e.g. precipitation, evaporation, runoff), followed by different ways in which humans use and depend upon freshwater resources. |
 | EEPS 1250 – New England Field GeologyInstructor: Eben “Blake” Hodgin How do geologists know what happened on earth thousands to millions of years ago? What is their evidence? Can our own observations, measurements, and analyses provide new insights and context for understanding the past? Through field trips and seminar discussion, this course will provide an introduction to geological field methods and an overview of the geologic history of the region in and around Rhode Island. In addition to field trips that focus on regional bedrock geology and developing mapping skills, the course will also involve field trips that develop field skills for investigating Pleistocene glacial deposits and Holocene soils. The course will introduce field methods, field mapping, structural analysis, and soil and site evaluation. The course will require attendance of weekend field trips, maintaining a detailed field notebook, making three geological maps, seminar participation, and writing one final report. |
 | EEPS 1350 – Spatial Data ScienceInstructor: Seda Salap-Ayca Spatial Data Science explores the application of statistical, computational, and geographic principles to analyze and derive insights from spatial data. This class serves as an advanced Geographic Information Science (GIS) course focusing on three important stages of geographic information: modelling, analyzing, and visualization of spatial information. This course is designed for students interested in leveraging spatial data science techniques to analyze, visualize, and interpret spatial data for decision-making and problem-solving in diverse fields such as geography, environmental science, urban planning, and public health. Through lab work and foundational lectures, this course covers the guiding principles behind various facets of Spatial Data Science including big data, cluster analysis, geosimulation, pattern recognition, deep learning, network analysis, and geovisualization. You will have the opportunity to explore cutting-edge spatial data science techniques and apply them to real-world problems across multiple disciplines. |
 | EEPS 1370 – Environmental GeochemistryInstructor: Yongsong Huang The course will examine the biogeochemical cycling, fate and transport of chemicals in the atmospheric and aquatic environments. Topics such as chemical weathering, natural water pollution and remediation, acid deposition, global warming and air pollution will be examined through natural ecosystem examples from rivers, lakes, estuaries, and ocean. Field trips and laboratory arranged. Prerequisites: CHEM 0100 or 0330, or instructor permission. |
 | EEPS 1400 – Climate Modeling IInstructor: Mara Freilich An introduction to climate modeling, focusing on the fundamental principles of climate dynamics and the techniques used to simulate and understand the climate system of Earth and other planets. Students will learn about the underlying physics, concepts, and computational methods involved in climate modeling. The course will explore the challenges and uncertainties associated with climate models and their role in predicting future climate change. The course has two tracks: quantitative and qualitative. Students in the quantitative track will gain hands-on experience with analyzing climate modeling output and software tools to do so and will be assessed with problem sets. Students in the qualitative track will focus on interpretation of model results and modeling concepts and have additional reading assignments and will be assessed with writing assignments. |
 | EEPS 1420 – PetrologyInstructor: Stephen Parman Introduction to the origin and evolution of igneous rocks. Topics include: physical properties of magma, thermodynamics and phase equilibria, igneous rocks and their classification, magmatic processes, trace elements and isotopes, basalts and layered intrusions, survey of lunar and planetary petrology. Prerequisites: EEPS 1410, or instructor permission. |
 | EEPS 1530 – Polar OceanographyInstructor: Chris Horvat The polar oceans are unique because of their multi-scale and ephemeral sea ice cover, the frozen composite material that separates the atmosphere from the ocean below and makes understanding these regions a challenge. Sea ice is a wonderfully complex medium that evolves on length scales from meters to hundreds of kilometers and time scales from seconds to days. This course will explore observations and modeling of the polar oceans with a focus on the sea ice cover itself through a mix of lecture and peer-led discussion. |
 | EEPS 1610 – Solid Earth GeophysicsInstructor: Colleen Dalton A survey of basic geophysical techniques for determining the structure and dynamics of Earth's interior. Topics include: global structure from seismic waves; gravity, magnetic field, and shape of the Earth; thermal processes within the Earth; structure of continental and oceanic lithosphere. Recommended courses: EEPS 0220, PHYS 0470, APMA 0330. No prerequisites. |
 | EEPS 1615 – Climate Change, Human Rights, and the Policy ProcessInstructor: Amanda Lynch The diminishing quality of Earth’s systems and resources carries profound implications for the fulfillment of human rights and aspirations. But even as Western knowledge systems understand better the intrinsic interdependencies between humans and the non-human, policy gridlock persists. Indeed, scientific findings are regularly contested on political grounds. The purpose of this course is to learn how to apply diverse knowledges from Indigenous to Modern to map the relevant policy in problems at the intersection of human rights and environmental integrity, and to develop approaches to address them in ways that are creative, effective, responsible and just. |
 | EEPS 1730 – Isotope GeochemistryInstructor: Alberto Saal This course provides a comprehensive introduction to radiogenic and stable isotope geochemistry. Beginning with a brief overview of nuclear physics and nucleosynthesis, it then reviews radioactive decay schemes including and their use in geochronology. Subsequent classes cover nucleosynthetic anomalies in meteorites and early solar system chronology and the use of radiogenic isotopes (including Uranium-series) in understanding the evolution of the Earth’s mantle, crust, and oceans. Attention then turns to stable isotopes reviewing the basic principles involved in controlling stable isotopes during both equilibrium and kinetic fractionation, followed by their application on diverse topics but particularly on climate evolution. Finally, the course explores recent developments including unconventional stable isotopes, mass-independent fractionation, isotopic ‘clumping’, noble gasses isotopes and their applications. |
 | EEPS 1750 – GeomorphologyInstructor: Sam Birch This course introduces students to the physical processes that shape Earth and planetary surfaces. How do rivers erode and transport sediment? What controls the shape of coastlines or the meandering of rivers? Designed for students across disciplines with basic math and physics backgrounds, the course emphasizes both analytical problem-solving and developing the intuition to read a landscape like a geomorphologist. Throughout the semester, students will work collaboratively to unravel the complex stories landscapes can tell. |