GEOPS is a joint laboratory of the “Université de Paris-Sud” (UPSUD) and the “Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique” (CNRS) created in 2004.

It is structured in 5 scientific teams and 2 transversal themes. Within CNRS, GEOPS is supervised by the “Institut des Sciences de l’Univers” (INSU), secondarily by the ”Institut Ecologie et Environnement” (INEE). Within UPSUD, GEOPS belongs the “UFR des Sciences” and is member of the “Département des Sciences de la Terre”, whose it is the only member.

GEOPS is composed of 63 permanent employees and about 45 non-permanent people. The permanent employees consist of 35 teachers-researchers, 5 researchers and 21 engineers and technicians. The non-permanent people include 33 PhD students and 10 postdocs/ATER. GEOPS is a young laboratory, with one half of scientists less than 40 years old.

The main fields of research at GEOPS are climate variability, continental hydrology, water and matter transfers in the geosphere and geochronology.

One of the main strength of GEOPS is its ability to conduct multidisciplinary studies of the geological processes occurring and/or recorded at the surface of the Earth and of terrestrial-type planets (characterization, tracing, measurement and modelling of the interactions between internal and external processes in surface environments or their reconstruction in the past).

The main themes studied by researchers of the GEOPS laboratory are :

1. The continental part (rivers, groundwater) of the water cycle from the perspective of the preservation of water resources, ecosystems and natural resources
2. The characterization of Siberian and Martian permafrosts, the processes at the subsurface-atmosphere interface on planets, and the ancient paleo-environments favourable to the appearance of life
3. The physical chemistry of biominerals and the reconstruction of the evolution of environments and past climates on Earth

1. The study of climate change impacts in arctic regions
2. The history of volcanic systems and the risk factors associated to their evolution
3. The quantification of the long-term erosion of continental surfaces, of fluid circulations in sedimentary basins and of associated resources.

The equipments of the laboratory are distributed over 3 internal platforms :
« Geochemistry »,
« Mineralogy » and « Geophysical measurements and analogical modelling », equipped with the following instruments :

Geochemistry	Mineralogy	Geophysical measurements and analogical modelling
- IRMS mass spectrometer and quadrupole  K-Ar and Ar-Ar mass spectrometers (coupled with a furnace and a laser)  Noble gas mass spectrometer  Thermal Luminescence and Optically Stimulated Luminescence device  Liquid and gas chromatrographs  Atomic emission spectrometer using inductively coupled plasma (icp-oes)  Atomic absorption spectro-photometer.  b spectrometer	- X-ray diffractometer  Scanning electron microscope with EDS detector  Atomic force microscope  Laser granulometer  Fourier transform infrared spectrometer  Cathodo-luminescence device	- Sismometer  Geoelectrical equipment  Geological radar  Differential GPS  Cesium magnetometer  Hydraulic channel in cold chamber  3-D digital laser scanner (shared with FAST laboratory)

Two cooperative platforms are under implementation.

First, a collaborative geochemical platform shared by GEOPS and LSCE (“Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement”, UVSQ/CEA/CNRS) has been developed during the last three years. Today, it includes instruments localized at LSCE (spectrometer for noble gas, TIMS, ICP-MS, LA-MC-ICPMS) and at GEOPS (H2O-Max platform, X-ray diffractometer, laser grain-size).

Second, a geophysical platform has been initiated by GEOPS and FAST (“Fluides, Automatique et Systèmes Thermiques”, UPSUD/UPMC/CNRS) in 2006. It is equipped with hydraulic channels in cold chambers, geophysical imaging device (electrical resistivity tomography and high resolution ground penetrating radar), high resolution camera, computing cluster and 3-D digital laser scanner.

The average publication rate over the last four years have been around 60 papers in peer-reviewed journal every year.

The global budget of the GEOPS laboratory, including about 250 kEuros of recurrent budget from UPSUD and CNRS, the public and private contracts, the European and international programs, is of 900 kEuros for 2010, excluding salaries. From an administrative point of view, IDES is managed jointly by the UPS-11 University and the CNRS “Délégation Ile-de-France Sud”. The financial management is shared between UPSUD and CNRS

Organigrammes GEOPS