Welcome to Helmholtz Centre PotsdamGFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences

The GFZ is the national research centre for Earth Sciences in Germany. We investigate “System Earth“ at locations all over the world with all the geological, physical, chemical and biological processes which occur at its surface and in its interior.

The goal of our interdisciplinary research is to understand these processes on all scales of time and space, whether they occur at the level of atoms and molecules or galaxies, and independently of whether they take place faster than the blink of an eye in nanoseconds or if they happen infinitely slowly over billions of years. We not only investigate the processes within the planet itself, but also study the multitude of interactions between solid earth, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the inhabited world. We also analyse how man, living at the Earth's surface, affects our planet. In sum, our research deals with the entire "Earth System" including the influence of mankind.

News:


GPS solution provides three-minute tsunami alerts

GFZ researchers have shown that, by using global positioning systems (GPS) to measure ground deformation caused by a large underwater earthquake, they can provide accurate warning of the resulting tsunami in just a few minutes after the earthquake onset. For the devastating Japan 2011 event, the team reveals that the analysis of the GPS data and issue of a detailed tsunami alert would have taken no more than three minutes.
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Expanding the cooperation with India

On 9 May, Dr. Shaylesh Nayak, State Secretary of the Indian Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) in Delhi, and his delegation visited the GFZ and the KTB deep laboratory of the GFZ in Windischeschenbach. The visit served the preparation of several cooperation projects between the MoES, the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) and the GFZ.


Latest Press Releases

09.05.2013 | Climate History of the Arctic as a Key to the Future

Analyses of the longest continental sediment core ever collected in the Arctic have provided an almost continuous archive of information on arctic climate dynamics for the period from 3.6 to 2.2 million years ago. It was during this period that a transition took place from the warm Pliocene to the Quaternary, the so-called Ice Age, in which we live today and through which the polar region, which undergoes glacial /interglacial cycles with varying ice coverage, is characterized. ...more

28.03.2013 | Helmholtz Alberta Initiative continues

The Helmholtz-Alberta Initiative lives on Research on oil sand related aspects within the scope of the Helmholtz-Alberta Initiative (HAI) will be discontinued on the German side. At the same time, however, the cooperation in the context of HAI will be expanded in other fields and the excellent research with the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, will be continued and strengthened. ...more