Scotland Field Campaign, NW Highlands - May 2023

In assessing the NSF grant budget, I realized that I had sufficient funds to organize an additional field campaign to study areas in the Scottish Highlands. On this trip, I had the pleasure of taking Evan, one of my labmates from UCSB, as a field assistant. He was a great help and brought essential insight into characterizing bar preservation- a research component that we had hoped to address from the beginning, but into which we haven’t yet had the opportunity to delve. Thus, this additional field campaign focused on assessing bar preservation within the Clachtoll, Bay of Stoer, Meall Dearg, and Applecross Formations. Furthermore, we were able to conduct LiDAR surveys of significant portions of these formations. I will be using bar preservation, measured sections, and bar surfaces from digital outcrop models to further characterize the planform of channel bodies throughout these formations.

This campaign ended with a quick stop in London to visit my UK advisor, Alex Whittaker, and other colleagues at Imperial College London. It was great to be back in London, and work through fresh data with Alex in person.

AGU Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL - Dec 2022

I attended the Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Chicago, IL. As always, I enjoyed seeing all of the cutting edge research presented. More importantly, I was greatly edified by reconnecting with my old labmates and advisor from Indiana University, as well as working on research in-person with past and present advisors and colleagues. I was also grateful for the chance to reconnect with UK colleagues!

Presentation title: Proterozoic Point Bars: Geological Evidence for 1.2 Ga Deep, Meandering Rivers, Clachtoll Formation, Stoer Group, NW Scotland (Paper number: EP56A-04)

Back to UCSB - Fall 2022

Having completed my time in London, I returned to UCSB at the end of July and focused that semester on digitizing and analyzing field data. I also assisted my labmate Debsmita Das with her flume experiment set-up. More specifically, we had the joy of solving an issue of having ordered “unwashed” sand… while the sand fraction of the sediment was accurate to our supply order, we didn’t account for “dust”, silt and clay-sized particles that are generally inconsequential for normal construction purposes, but obviously very important for flume use. Debsmita and Vamsi had already removed a good amount of fines before I returned to UCSB, but we continued to filter the sediment, by way of a pool sand filter, for about 5 weeks until the laser was able to successfully perform scans of the flume bed. I look forward to helping Debsmita begin collecting data as we move into the new year.

Second Scottish Field Campaign - July 2022

Main data collection campaign- Stoer Group and Upper and Lower Applecross outcrops across NW Highlands (Between Loch Torridon and Stoer Peninsula). I had excellent field assistants accompany me on this phase of data collection- Jonah McLeod (PhD student, ICL) assisted with the first week, and Amanda Wild (PhD student, GFZ) assisted with the second week. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Jonah and Amanda, and especially appreciated their input and insight as I provided some basic field methodology training. Alex Whittaker was also able to come up to contribute to data collection and methodology training (myself included!) the second week. We were happy to have continued luck in terms of weather, more than half the days were (mostly) dry! We focused on collecting dune paleocurrents and cross-set heights, and bar accretion directions and heights. Furthermore, we collected hand-held LiDAR surveys (using an iPad Pro) of dozens of channel bodies.

Article Published in Journal of Sedimentary Research - June 2022

Research from the second chapter of my dissertation was published at JSR, “Quantifying river avulsion activity from satellite remote sensing: Implications for how avulsions contribute to floodplain stratigraphy in foreland basins”. This project entailed a more detailed look at avulsion activity, especially events dominated by progradational processes. We found that even larger, progradation-dominated events are composed of multiple reaches that switch between channel annexation and floodplain progradation. Furthermore, most events either began or ended with an annexational reach, and a significant portion both began and ended with an annexational reach. We include discussion of potential depositional consequences of these heterogeneous avulsion events.

EGU Annual Meeting, Vienna, Austria - May 2022

I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the European Geophysical Union Annual Meeting held in Vienna, Austria. I had a fantastic time meeting scientists from the European earth science community and getting a taste of the research going on across the pond. I presented my research on paleohydraulic reconstructions of Proterozoic channels from the Stoer Group, especially focusing on estimating the amount of cohesion necessary to maintain stable channel planforms indicated by the reconstructions.

Presentation title:
”Pre-vegetation, single-thread rivers sustained by cohesive, fine-grained bank sediments: Mesoproterozoic Stoer Group, NW Scotland” (Abstract code EGU22-7490)

Spring-Summer at Imperial College London, UK - April-July 2022

The biggest adventure of my career to this point, I relocated to London to work as a visiting scholar at the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London. I had the great fortune of working under Dr. Alex Whittaker and with his students. I especially appreciated assisting Jonah McLeod and James Wood with a wrap-up field campaign studying woody debris and implications for flood dynamics in the Pennant Sandstone of south Wales. I also appreciated associating with fellow fluvial stratigraphers and geomorphologists in the RSM. On a personal note, I was impressed by the beauty and history of Kensington, the greater London area, and the UK in general.

American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting - Dec 12-17, 2021

I had the great opportunity to attend the AGU Fall Meeting in New Orleans, LA. All of Dr. Ganti’s lab got to attend, and we had a great time attending many of the conference events and presentations together, and discussing implications for our respective research topics and career opportunities. I learned a great deal about my own research topics and many tangential subjects, and had a fantastic time networking with old friends and colleagues, meeting authors on whose research I’ve relied heavily, and identified future opportunities for exciting collaboration.

Arrival at UC Santa Barbara - Aug 14, 2021

I began my National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship this month at UCSB. I’m working with Dr. Vamsi Ganti in the Geography Department. The new flume has been delayed due to Covid, so in the meantime I will be working on paleohydraulic reconstruction of the Proterozoic Stoer Group from outcrop measurements gathered by Dr. Ganti in a recent field campaign.

Dissertation Defense - June 30, 2021

I successfully defended my dissertation on Wednesday, June 30th! A big thanks to my research committee, who guided me and helped direct my research over the last five years- My fearless advisor, Dr. Edmonds, indispensible minor advisor, Dr. Hwang, and supporting committee members, Dr. Yanites and Dr. Polly. I must also acknowledge the incredible support I’ve received from my family, including my wife, parents, and sisters.

Graduation/Commencement - May 7, 2021

The “big day” came a little before I wrapped up my dissertation, but it was a great boost in my motivation to make sure I crossed the official finish line later in the summer. It was great to have my parents and sister and her husband fly out to celebrate with me. The long, hot Commencement exercises at the IU Memorial Stadium was made ten times better by an unexpected seat next to fellow Earth Science graduate Brigid Lynch.

Article Published in Nature Communications - April, 2021

Results from my the first chapter of my dissertation were published in Nature Communications, in an article titled: "Downstream changes in avulsion style are related to channel morphology” (see Research>Avulsion Dynamics for more details on that project). Publishing my first first-author paper is a huge relief and I am grateful to my advisor, Dr. Edmonds, for his mentoring and guidance in moving my research from the analysis phase to formal communication of results in a peer-reviewed journal.