Welcome to Helmholtz Centre PotsdamGFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences

The GFZ is the national research center 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.

10.08.2010 | Unconventional natural gas on Bornholm

Today, Wednesday, a scientific drilling project to investigate natural gas in shale rock is launched on the Danish island of Bornholm. The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences together with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) will be performing a shallow drilling of 40 meters into the Alum Shale of the island within the research project GASH (Gas Shales in Europe). ...more

15.07.2010 | Birthday in Space: Recap of the life of a satellite

10 years CHAMP-Mission: Exploration of gravity, magnetic field and atmosphere

Today, on the 15th July at 14:32 GMT, the georesearch satellite CHAMP orbits the Earth for the 57217th time, thus heralding its 10th anniversary in service. Exactly one decade ago, the satellite was set into an almost polar orbit at the head of a Russian COSMOS-rocket following a text-book launch from the Plesetsk cosmodrome. ...more

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