Research Goals

We seek to understand and quantify the processes that shape the landscapes on Earth and other planets, and to unravel the expression of these processes in the ancient sedimentary record. Our overarching research goals are centered around answering: (a) How do modern geomorphic processes interact and manifest themselves in landscape form and function? (b) What is the depositional signature of these processes in the sedimentary record? We work on a range of environments (from erosional to depositional systems), across a wide range of spatiotemporal scales (from the migration of a single river dune upto the scale of sedimentary basin filling), and across modern and ancient systems. The unifying themes that connect these contrasting scales and environments is our desire to quantify the effect of variability (both internally generated within geomorphic and sedimentary systems, and externally-imposed on the landscape), and to quantitatively map the dynamics of surface processes to their depositional products in the ancient rock record.

To address these questions, we use an interdisciplinary, integrated approach that combines our understanding of modern geomorphic processes and ancient sedimentary deposits with the hydrodynamics of sediment transport and loose-boundary hydraulics. We combine a wide array of tools ranging from sediment transport theory, mathematical and statistical analyses, physical experiments, and field observations to address these research challenges.