Research

Geomorphology is my main thing. Much of the work draws upon cosmo and numerical modelling to quantify rates of erosion, transport and deposition in sedimentary environments. The key themes are as follows:

✦ Cold landscapes

Glacial and postglacial processes in high mountain and high latitude environments, including deglaciation chronology, cryogenic soil processes, glacioisostasy and fluvial-glacial interactions. Nowadays my focus is on reconstructing and understanding the earliest Plio-Pleistocene ice sheets.

Glacially eroded plateau surfaces above 1400m, Jotunheimen, S-Norway.

✦ River processes & dynamics

Rivers and the evolution of landscapes, including bedrock incision, sediment transport-deposition and the role of channel vegetation in river behaviour. My research began with fluvial geomorphology, and rivers remain a core interest.

Wet Season river surveying & bedload gauging in Magela Ck, N-Australia.

✦ Extreme geological events
Processes and products of rare, high-magnitude floods triggered by extreme rainfall or collapse of ice-dammed lakes. Understanding the magnitude and frequency of events that shape Earth's surface is central to geomorphology.

Suspended-load gravel in giant-flood bar, Vitim River, Siberia.

✦ Desert environments

Erosion and sediment transport processes in drylands and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction via river, lake and dune proxies. I like dry stony places.

Palaeoshoreline excavation at Lake Callabonna, central Australia.

✦ Pleistocene archaeology

After first touching on archaeology during my PhD studies in central Australia, more recently I have applied luminescence and cosmo burial dating to sites of early human dispersal in Europe, Siberia, and the Levant.

Early Palaeolithic (Mode 1) stone artefacts excavated at Korolevo, western Ukraine.