Greetings from the Chairman of the Department of Geophysics

Geophysics is a broad research field that studies solid Earth, oceans, atmosphere, upper-atmosphere, ionosphere and planets. Undergraduate students of the Department of Geophysics learn fundamental Physics as academic base, and then study subjects of the Earth and solar systems. The faculty members and the members of research centers cooperatively serve for education of the undergraduate and the graduate courses of Geophysics.

The Earth seen from space is quietly shinning blue and beautiful, which has taken people in the space captive. But, the Earth is active and full of natural variations with a variety of scales, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, atmospheric and oceanic phenomena, aurora, and magnetic storms, etc. Since we live in the Earth, the natural variability sometime influences the human activities. The academic targets of Geophysics were gradually understood by scientists and their detection and prediction become available, which encourages other academic/application areas to take outputs of the Geophysics achievements.

The Department of Geophysics was funded in 1945 in the Faculty of Science of the Tohoku University. During the last six decades, the Department of Geophysics has made great efforts and important contributions for establishing the framework of Geophysics. We value the proud history and tradition established by many of our predecessors, and we are working to open up new frontiers of Geophysics. Toward the new goals and objectives, we have made efforts to revise examination rules of the graduate-school entrance, improve the graduate-school programs, and establish the Global COE (Center of Excellence) program for intensely and conscientiously supporting our graduate students in research and education as well as living conditions.

We wish that many young students come to enter our Department of Geophysics and challenge the new frontiers of Geophysics together with us.

Professor Hiroshi KAWAMURA
Chairman of the Department of Geophysics
Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University
April 2009