2012 ICGP projects summary

IGCP projects which are active in 2012 focus on key geological issues for today’s societies and are divided along the following five themes:

• Earth Resources: Sustaining our Society : Knowledge on natural resources - including minerals, hydrocarbons, geothermal energy, and water - and their management is the frontline of the struggle for more sustainable and equitable development. The environmentally responsible exploitation of these resources is a challenge for geoscience research. The progress of technological development is equally bound to this premise.
• Global Change: Evidence from the geological record: Changes in the Earth's climate and of life on Earth are preserved in the geologic record.  Ice and dust records, terrestrial and ocean sediments, and sequences of fossil plant and animal assemblages all tell the story of our Planet which holds important lessons about present-day environmental challenges and the ways to mitigate and manage environmental damage.
• Geohazards: Mitigating the risks: Geohazards include earthquakes, volcanic activity, landslides, tsunamis, floods, meteorite impacts and the health hazards of geologic materials, and can range from local events such as a rock slide or coastal erosion to events that threaten humankind such as a supervolcano or meteorite impact. Earth scientists undertake research to better understand these hazards and contribute to risk management policies related to social and technical issues associated with geohazards as well as disaster mitigation.
• Hydrogeology: Geoscience of the water cycle: Life on Earth depends on water, and its sustainable use is crucial for continued human activities. Earth’s water cycle involves studying, understanding, and managing groundwater systems, hydrogeology, as well as sources, contamination and vulnerability of water systems. 
• Geodynamic: Control our environment: Our habitable environment at the Earth's surface is linked and controlled by processes occurring deep within the Earth. Earth scientists use, inter alia, geophysical techniques to study deep Earth processes ranging from changes in the Earth's magnetic field to plate tectonics to understand better the Earth as a dynamic planet. Those processes are also relevant to natural resource exploration, distribution and management of groundwater resources and the study and mitigation of natural hazards such as earthquakes.