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Near-Surface Geophysics

Near-Surface Geophysics focuses on the development and application of any and all geophysical methods to study the near-surface region of the Earth, to advance the fundamental science of geophysical imaging (data acquisition, inversion, interpretation), and to address key questions about subsurface properties and processes.

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AGU Awards Announced!

Dear NSG Members,

 It's a special moment for our Near Surface Geophysics (NSG) community as three of our distinguished members have been honored with esteemed AGU awards. As the President of NSG, I am filled with pride to share these outstanding accomplishments with you all. 

  • Esben Auken has been selected as an AGU Fellow in recognition of the impactful contributions he has made to our field. His dedication and pioneering work have significantly advanced the realm of electromagnetic geophysics. He has been selected as an AGU Fellow “For innovative and sustained development of electromagnetic software and instruments that advance hydrologic and geologic discovery and solutions”. Esben Auken is CEO at TEMCompany Aps, and adjunct professor at the Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University. He has been Deputy Director at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland and before that full time professor of geophysics at Aarhus University. He gained an MSc (1991) and PhD (1996) in geophysics from Aarhus University. TEMCompany vision is to develop affordable, easy to use electromagnetic instruments for imagining groundwater resources.

  • Rosemary Knight has been honored with the AGU Ambassador Award, recognizing her impactful contributions beyond traditional scientific boundaries, notably “for outstanding contributions in geophysics for water resource evaluation and pioneering efforts to build the community of near-surface geophysics.”. Rosemary Knight is the George L. Harrington Professor of Earth Sciences in the Geophysics Department at Stanford and Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute. Rosemary has worked for more than 30 years on the challenge of using geophysical methods for groundwater science and management. Collaboration with local and state agencies and with nonprofit organizations to move “knowledge into action” has been, and remains, central to the work done by Rosemary with her students and postdoctoral associates.

  • Adam Mangel is the recipient of the NSG Early Career Award. This award underscores the remarkable trajectory of his career thus far and the promising future he is paving. It's truly inspiring to see such drive and promise within our community.

These awards are not just personal milestones for Esben, Rosemary and Adam but also a reflection of the excellence that thrives within our NSG community. Their achievements serve as an inspiration to all of us, urging us to push the boundaries of what's possible in our respective areas. 

Let us all join in congratulating them on these significant recognitions. 

Submit your session proposal for #AGU24

AGU24 session proposal submission is open and will last until April 24! Proposals are invited for topics across a broad range of scientific disciplines and sessions. Submit your proposal by 24 April.

We particularly encourage our Early Career members to submit their ideas and to help to facilitate our Annual Meeting program. You have an idea you want to discuss or you are looking for co-conveners, get in touch with our Annual Meeting representatives.

OSPA Winners announced

We are pleased to announce this year’s OSPA winners. The three presentations that won are Matthew Tankersley, presenting on “Progress towards an open-source geometric gravity inversion with stochastic uncertainty estimates”, Anran Xu presenting on “Leveraging Convolutional Neural Networks for implicit regularization in DC resistivity inversions”, and Susanne Ouellet with her presentation on “Kinematic Evolution of a Slow-moving Landslide Revealed using Distributed Acoustic Sensing”. We are congratulate Matthew, Anran and Susanne, and thank all the students that participated in the OSPA program and all the judges for providing valuable feedback to the students. The OPSA program is nothing without your feedback – so thanks again for taking the time to judge the presentations and for providing your feedback to the students. 

Adventures of a Geophysicist - 7 short stories


The field of Near Surface Geophysics has a rich history of innovation in methods, instrumentation, and software. Some of this history is preserved in the publications and textbooks from our field, but many of the interesting back-stories about the people and groups that led to important developments in our field are often lost. To preserve some of this history, the Near Surface Geophysics section will share seven short stories written by Niels Christensen, Professor Emeritus at Aarhus University, one per month posted in our newsletter and linked for posterity on our website. The stories will also be published in ASEG's Preview magazine. You can find the background and the seven stories as they are released here. 

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Google Maps - Near Surface Geophysics Map: submit your pin(s) for any of your present or past fieldsites for which a geophysical dataset exists. We just need your name, a location, name of geophysical method(s), and any other relevant information you want to provide (e.g. date of the dataset, additional methods, collaborators, etc…). The info can be submitted in two ways:

  1. add a pin directly to this shareable map, including a title, description, and link to data [search for the coordinates in the search box at the top of the map and select the option to ‘add pin’]
  2. Submit all relevant data to this form

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