The strength of research in the department of Physical Sciences is its focus on the interdisciplinary aspects of natural processes: physical, geological and chemical. The physical science aspects include studies on water motion in estuaries and on the continental shelf along with the associated transport of buoyancy, suspended particles, nutrients and pollutants. The geological research sites span the full range of marine/nearshore environments from the coastal plain and river floodplains, through the estuaries and across the margin to the base of the continental rise. In the chemical sciences, work is currently being conducted across groundwater, riverine, estuarine, continental margin and open ocean environments on a variety of projects intended to help us better understand the cycling of organic materials (both natural and anthropogenic) and both major and trace elements.