Earth and Environmental Science

Philly as lab, classroom, and collaborator

Philadelphia’s rich history and forward momentum make it ripe for scientific inquiry for a number of Penn schools and departments, from urban and population studies to medicine and anthropology.

Michele W. Berger

By river, ocean, or wind, rocks round the same way

Observations from Puerto Rican river rocks, New Mexican sand grains, Italian ocean pebbles, and the lab lent Douglas Jerolmack and his team insight into a general geophysical process.

Katherine Unger Baillie



In the News


WHYY (Philadelphia)

Climate policy under a second Trump presidency

Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences discusses how much a president can do or undo when it comes to environmental policy.

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Salon.com

Exxon CEO wants Trump to stay in Paris climate accord

Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences voices his concern about the possibility that the U.S. could become a petrostate.

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Associated Press

Amid Earth’s heat records, scientists report another bump upward in annual carbon emissions

Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that total carbon emissions including fossil fuel pollution and land use changes such as deforestation are basically flat because land emissions are declining.

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The Independent

Climate scientists fear Trump will destroy progress in his second term – and the outcome could be ‘grim’

Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that a second Trump term and the implementation of Project 2025 represents the end of climate action in this decade.

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The New York Times

The science that makes baseball mud ‘magical’

A study by Douglas Jerolmack of the School of Arts & Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Science and colleagues has uncovered the mechanical properties of the mud used to coat Major League baseballs, with additional remarks from postdoc Shravan Pradeep and Paulo Arratia.

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NBC News

Special mud rubbed on all MLB baseballs has unique, ‘magical’ properties, study finds

A study by Douglas Jerolmack of the School of Arts & Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Science and colleagues has uncovered the mechanical properties of the mud used to coat Major League baseballs.

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