Slow Landslide Processes

While some landslides fail catastrophically, others exhibit slow seasonal slip, often amounting to only centimeters to meters per year. What determines which of these two differing modes of behavior dominates remains a key problem in landslide mechanics and natural hazard prediction. We are investigating the physical processes that are thought to govern slow slip in landslides at Oak Ridge Earthflow (at left) near San Jose, CA.

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Gravel Rivers and Coarse Sediment Transport

What governs the mobility of coarse sediment? How does this shape the hydraulic geometry of river channels? We are tackling these and other related questions through field and experimental studies.

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Climate, Tectonics and the Geomorphology of Bedrock River Channels

Unglaciated topography is shaped by competition between tectonic uplift and climate-driven bedrock river incision.  We are investigating the processes that shape bedrock channels, as well as the ways in which river canyons encode information about climatic and tectonic forcing

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