PhD in Geochemistry - Chemical Petrology in Pasadena United States | California Institute of Technology

Geochemistry explores Earth's chemical makeup and structural changes, along with its various components like the atmosphere, oceans, crust, mantle, and core, as well as celestial bodies such as meteorites, comets, planets, the sun, and distant stars. This field focuses on how elements move and are distributed within Earth and its surrounding environment. Originally descriptive, geochemistry has grown to emphasize understanding the underlying processes driving its findings. Modern geochemistry branches into specialized areas like aqueous geochemistry, cosmochemistry, inorganic geochemistry, isotope geochemistry, organic geochemistry, and trace-element geochemistry. Because chemical reactions play a key role in geological phenomena, geochemical insights help explain processes across other geoscience disciplines. At Caltech GPS, geochemistry has been applied since 1952 to analyze element distribution in Earth and the solar system, create techniques for dating planetary events, identify the chemical properties of terrestrial and extraterrestrial materials, and investigate reactions occurring within Earth's interior, on its surface, and beyond in the solar system.