Geosciences Environment Toulouse (GET) is a multidisciplinary research laboratory in Earth and Environmental Sciences attached to the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OSU OMP). The unit is a component of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), the Toulouse University (UT3), and the CNES. The lab currently brings together around 230 tenured researchers, professors and assistant professors, engineers, technicians, and administrative staff, in addition to more than 70 Ph.D. students and researchers on fixed-term contracts. The laboratory has started in 2021 its third five-years contract with the institutional partners.
We are carrying out multidisciplinary research to understand the inner Earth, its continental surfaces and interfaces, and its environment. Our scientific goals aim to improve knowledge on (i) the evolution and dynamics of the Earth, (ii) the space-based and in situ observation of the Earth, (iii) the Critical Zone and the fluid-rock-living interactions, and (iv) the georesources and the contamimants-environment-health interactions.
One of GET’s strengths is its ability to implement combined approaches using geology, geochemistry, geophysics, geodesy, and hydrology, complemented by geography and sociology. Our research is based on experimentation, field and spatial observation, and numerical and analog modeling. We develop original research to understand our planet, at different time scales (long and short time) and space scales (from the global Earth to the mineral scale), taking into account the couplings between the different Earth envelopes (lithosphere, asthenosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere). The laboratory has an experimental park at the highest levels in the fields of isotopic and elementary geochemistry, geophysics, remote sensing, petrology, and mineralogy.
The research proposed in the 2021-2025 project is in line with the priorities supported by CNRS-INSU, IRD, and CNES, on major research and development issues (natural hazards, resources and energy, climate variability, and change, contaminants and impacts on biodiversity, health, and society). The GET actively contributes to labeled national observation services (SNO), national research infrastructures (IR, TGIR), and national data centers (RESIF, REGEF, OZCAR, THEIA, FORM@TER).
At the international level, the GET is strongly involved in international research and training activities, in particular with the developing countries under the IRD umbrella. Our main partners are located in West Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. The GET contributes to the management of several international projects and laboratories. It also coordinates 3 national observation services focussing on continental surfaces and international scientific services in global geodesy. The GET also hosts the IODP-France office.
At the regional level, the GET is labelled Institut Carnot (ISIFOR) and participates in various networks, structures, or competitiveness clusters in different fields (space, digital computing, resources, water, contamination, etc.). Finally, within the OMP, it has contributed to the emergence of the TESS University Research School project and the Interdisciplinary Institute of Artificial Intelligence project in the Toulouse area, financed by PIA3.