Though it is something we are rarely confronted with, the Earth's surface is a dynamic place. The Earth as we know it today is but a single frame clipped from a 4.5 billion-year-long story where entire continents drift around the planet like bumper cars; oceans open and close; ice sheets ebb and flow; mountain ranges rise and crumble away; and species come and go like guests at a party.

My research is focused on the evolution of landscapes over timescales ranging from thousands to millions of years. Simply put, I use geologic clues to figure out why modern landscapes look the way they do, with an emphasis placed on the role of erosive forces like floods, glaciers, and landslides. This type of research is important for putting the world we live on into a longer-term context, and for understanding how it might change in the future.

Ongoing projects:

-Quaternary geology of Lake Clark National Park, Alaska
-Alluvial records of the southern Colorado Plateau

(click to jump to a summary)

================== Quaternary geology of Lake Clark National Park, Alaska ===================

I am currently working on unraveling the Quaternary history of Lake Clark National Park in south-central Alaska. Situated on the west side of Cook Inlet about 130 miles southwest of Anchorage, the park is only accessible by small aircraft. It consists of over 4.5 million acres of rugged, glaciated mountains and hundreds of lakes and rivers that stretch across the lowlands. The park is host to two active volcanos (Mt. Redoubt and Mt. Iliamna). Interestingly enough, the day I took the job, Mt. Redoubt erupted with a ~50,000 foot high cloud of ash and smoke.

Location map for Lake Clark NP.

Very few geologists have worked here, in part because of the inaccessibility, but also because of the relatively complex geology and poor exposure (too much vegetation!). In addition to synthesizing the results of relevant research from surrounding areas, I am figuring out the the timing of the major glacial advances and retreats that carved out the landscape over the past 30,000 years. I am also working with a geologist from the USGS on a map of the surficial deposits of the park. It is a big project in an even bigger park--my work is only the first of several seasons of effort that will be required to get a handle on its complex geologic history.

More pictures of Lake Clark National Park here.

=================== The alluvial records of the southern Colorado Plateau ===================

Streams in the southwestern U.S. are weird. Most of them are dry for most of the year, carrying water only after intense storms or during spring snowmelt. Over centuries, these streams go through cycles of filling with and cutting into the sediment they carry. When a stream is in the 'cut' phase, it is called an arroyo. In the late 19th century, a series of extreme floods initiated the most recent episode of arroyo cutting, causing streams to cut up to 30 meters into their beds. As a result, thousands of acres of farmland were lost to erosion and entire communities had to be abandoned.

A classic arroyo of the Colorado Plateau, here ~10 meters deep.

Stratigraphy exposed in the walls of modern arroyos indicates that there have been many cycles of arroyo cutting and filling during the Holocene. Geologists have been reconstructing these cycles and debating their causes for over a century. One hypothesis suggests that these cycles are manifestations of climate changes. Specifically, that arroyos are cut during episodes of relatively frequent, high-magnitude flooding driven by large-scale changes in atmospheric circulation.

Buckskin Wash is one of these strange, ephemeral streams. In its upper reaches, it flows through a deep arroyo cut ~10 meters into the valley bottom. It then drains into a slot canyon, where the channel is confined between bedrock walls only meters apart. In alcoves and short expansions within this canyon, tall stacks of sandy deposits are preserved. Previous workers have interpreted these stacks of sand as paleoflood deposits.

Flood deposits preserved deep in the Buckskin Gulch slot canyon.

For my Masters thesis, I studied the relationship between these slot canyon paleoflood deposits and the cycles of arroyo cutting and filling that occurred upstream. Results should be out in journals before too long.

Buckskin Wash drains approximately 900 km^2 near the Utah-Arizona border. Its watershed includes the Pink, Grey, White, and Vermillion Cliffs of Utah's 'Grand Staircase'. Truly spectacular country. After diving into the world-famous, 21-km long slot canyon, it goes on to drain into the Paria River, which then drains into the Colorado River just upstream of Grand Canyon.

More pictures of the area here: colorado plateau

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============================== Pre-geology research ==============================

06/06 - 08/06
Worked as an intern for the NOAA profiler network as part of the Hollings Scholarship program. I got to live in Boulder, CO for a summer and meet a lot of great people. While I enjoyed the work, I was more profoundly touched by the sweet landscapes of the Colorado Front Range.


06/04 - 09/05
Undergraduate research in observational astronomy with Dr. Markus Boettcher. We studied the behavior of 3C 66A, a blazar jillions of miles away. A blazar is a type of active galactic nucleus (AGN). It's where all the mass in a galaxy is slowly getting eaten up by black holes and converted into energy. All this energy shoots out as outrageously powerful jets. Sometimes these jets are oriented so that they point at Earth. We looked at the jet emanating from 3C 66A and how it changed over time. These observations help astronomers understand how these AGN work. To be honest, a lot of the details were over my head...but I did learn a lot in the process. Publication in the Astrophysical Journal in 2005, and in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2006.

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