Laura Walls published her dissertation 'Fossil Poetry, the Birth of Geology, and the Romantic Imagination, 1790-1860,' a study that explored the 'consilience' between creative and scientific literatures in the Romantic era. Walls argued that poetry and geology were deeply intertwined, with poets helping geologists to imagine and communicate the dizzying notions of deep time and lost worlds. Her work was a major contribution to the study of literature and science, highlighting the importance of poetic thinking in the development of geology.

Walls's scholarship has been instrumental in demonstrating that the Romantic poets were not merely reacting to geology but were actively engaged in shaping its intellectual and emotional foundations. By showing how poets like Wordsworth and Shelley helped to imagine the 'lost worlds' and 'deep time' of geology, she has overturned the traditional view of a separation between the 'two cultures.' Her work has inspired a new generation of scholars to investigate the rich and often surprising connections between literature and science.