Cross-posted at Highly Allochthonous It seems that whenever a natural disaster (or other tragedy) strikes, there is but a short delay before someone with a megaphone and an axe to grind points his finger at an entirely innocent group of people and blames them as the cause of the tectonic …
For some reason the last few days have seen me browsing the semi-frozen areas of the Earth and in my search for the perfect thermokarst landscape, I’ve run across some really nice deltas. I don’t know anything about the one below other than its location in far northwestern Saskatchewan, but …
About two months ago, I noted with great sadness the passing of a legendary figure in fluvial geomorphology, M. Gordon “Reds” Wolman, long-time professor at The Johns Hopkins University and inspiration to hundreds, if not thousands, of geomorphologists, hydrologists, and environmental scientists around the world. In the past two months, …
The Chippewa River drains the glaciated terrains of north-central Wisconsin including major outwash plains from the margins of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The sand carried by the Chippewa is a major sediment source for the Upper Mississippi River for tens of miles downstream. The Chippewa forms a beautiful delta into …
The eruption of Eyjafjallajokull (which means Island Mountain Glacier in Icelandic) started out in March as a relatively quiet and tourist-friendly Hawaiian style eruption. That petered out and then a few days later, the magma reemerged subglacially, producing the spectacular ash-producing phreato-magmatic eruption that has transfixed the world and stranded …
I spent a summer in college staring at maps and aerial photographs of the Rio Grande delta in Texas and Mexico. Maybe now I can get some use out of it. I was working with J.D. Stanley at the Smithsonian’s NMNH and he pointed me to the apparently high sinuosity …
Hunting for a Where on Google Earth location a while ago I ran across this wonderful tidally-influenced delta on the northwest coast of Madagascar. It is the mouth of the Betsiboka River and just north of the river mouth is the second largest port in Madagascar. What struck me about …
The major theme of my research is analyzing how geologic, topographic, and land use variability controls hydrologic response, climate sensitivity, and geomorphic evolution of watersheds, by partitioning water between surface and ground water. The goal of my research is to improve reach- to landscape-scale prediction of hydrologic and geomorphic response to human activities and climate change.
More than one billion people (1 in 6) do not have access to adequate clean fresh water – which is defined as just 20 to 50 liters per day. (In contrast, the average American can use in excess of 400 liters per day indoors.) More than 2.5 billion people do …
Cross-posted at Highly Allochthonous M. Gordon “Reds” Wolman was a towering figure in 20th century fluvial geomorphology, fundamentally shaping our understanding of river forms and processes, profoundly influencing environmental education and river management, and educating scores of students that continue to push the boundaries of our scientific understanding of landscape …