Geophysics research has long been dominated by continuum mechanics and electromagnetism, largely disregarding the potential benefits that knowledge of particle physics has to augment existing techniques. The first International workshop on high energy earth science: muon and neutrino radiography was held in Tokyo on 26–27 June 2008. During this conference we aim to strengthen understanding and partnership particularly between particle physicists and geophysicists. Driven by the enthusiasm for a further development of the new technique and for the extension of its applications, the MU-RAY (MUon RAdiographY ) Workshop was held in Naples on 11–12 September 2008, only a few months after the Tokyo Workshop. As anticipated, this subsequent event further extended the discussion of ongoing programs and on future projects. After that, many workshops have been recurrently organized between Italy and Japan. During this process, the size of the community of this filed has gradually increased.

The International workshop on high energy geophysics: muon and neutrino radiography was the latest of the series and was held in Tokyo on 27–28 June 2011. Physicists, geologists, geophysicists, planetary scientists, and civil engineers presented more than 30 papers from 10 countries (Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, UK, and USA). At the end of the workshop, the participants have reached to an agreement to hold an international workshop called MNR every year hosted by one of the countries listed above. In view of the great success of the workshop, we propose a proceeding of this workshop for a special issue of Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems (GI).

The purpose of the special issue is to stimulate an interdisciplinary approach by applying techniques developed from high energy elementary particle research to the study of earth sciences. The objective is to strengthen collaboration across discipline borders and supplement the current procedures associated with current earth science data collection by emphasizing design, description of instruments, calibration, and retrieval techniques, uncertainty in measurements and conceptual design related to this field. It is our belief that closer interaction across the borders between traditional geophysics and high energy particle physics fosters the generation of new ideas.