Biogeophysics

Biological processes are ubiquitous in nature and thus a fundamental part of most geophysical efforts. It is therefore important to assess any influence of these biological components on traditional research aspects such as structural or hydrogeophysical investigations. More importantly, a huge number of biological processes has been found to exhibit characteristics that can be captured by geophysical equipment usually used to investigate inanimate parts of the subsurface.
Thus, biogeophysics comprises the chracterization and monitoring of biological processes, and their interaction, in the subsurface of the earth.

The Department of Geophysics focuses on the characterization of crop root systems using electrical polarization measurements. These measurements have been shown to be sensitive not only on the structure, but also on the physiological activity and internal functions of root systems. This is remarkable as even today most root research is conducted by manual excavation of the `hidden-half'! We develop electrical methods both for the laboratory and the field scale that can not only image the distribution of roots in the subsurface, but also provide information about the temporal evolution and links to the internal dynamics.