European Geosciences Union
Division on Geomorphology
President: Peter van der Beek (gm@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Jens Turowski (turowski@gfz-potsdam.de)
Geomorphology is the scientific study of land-surface features and the dynamic processes that shape them. Besides focusing on the diverse physical landscapes of the Earth, geomorphologists also study surfaces of other planets. Understanding landform history and dynamics, and predicting future changes through a combination of field observations, physical experiments, and numerical modelling is at the heart of geomorphology. The division brings together research on processes that build topography trough e.g. the effects of tectonic forces as well as processes that modify the terrain such as weathering, erosion through running water, waves, glacial ice, wind and gravitational forces. Division members also study the impact of humans on geomorphological processes and investigate how geomorphological knowledge can be applied to solve problems of relevance to societies.
The 2018 Ralph Alger Bagnold medal will be awarded to Todd Ehlers for most original and fundamental contributions to our understanding of the coupling between climate, tectonics and erosion, and for outstanding community leadership in geomorphology (see full citation here (278.7 KB) ).
The 2018 GM Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award will be awarded to Liran Goren for her application of physical principles implemented with solid mathematical rigour into models of wide application in the Earth-surface sciences (see full citation here (36.3 KB) ).
Dan Parson's self-nomination for division president can be found here (116.4 KB) . See also his candidate interview on the the GM blog.
The 2018 Ralph Alger Bagnold Medal is awarded to Todd A. Ehlers for original and fundamental contributions to our understanding of the coupling between climate, tectonics and erosion, and for outstanding community leadership in geomorphology.
The 2018 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award is awarded to Liran Goren for her application of physical principles implemented with solid mathematical rigour into models of wide application in the Earth-surface sciences.
The 2017 Ralph Alger Bagnold Medal is awarded to Ellen Wohl for shaping our thinking on how river systems evolve and function, on the importance of legacy sediments and riverine carbon fluxes.
The 2017 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award is awarded to Dirk Scherler for his exceptional contributions to geomorphology that are forcing paradigm shifts and will have a long-lasting impact.
The 2017 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards is awarded to Antonius Golly Landscape response to rare flood events: a feedback cycle in channel-hillslope coupling
The 2017 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards is awarded to Elizabeth Dingle Where does all the gravel go? Abrasion-set limits on Himalayan gravel flux
The 2017 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards is awarded to Maï Bordiec Periodic bedforms generated by sublimation on terrestrial and martian ice sheets under the influence of the turbulent atmospheric boundary layer
Finally, the EGU general assembly is starting today. In order to give you some guidance what important events you should definitely not be missing out on, the ECS representatives (Micha Dietze and Annegret Larsen) put together this very nice timetable:
- written by Micha Dietze, Annegret Larsen (both GM Early Career Representatives), and Anouk Beniest (EGU TS Early Career Representative) – An interview with the Susanne Buiter, the current chair of the EGU Programme Committee Susanne Buiter is senior scientist and team leader at the Solid Earth Geology Team at the Geological Survey of Norway. She is also the chair of the EGU Programme Committee. This means that she leads the coordination of the scientific programme of the annual General …
- written by Michael Dietze, GFZ Potsdam – Why Swedish, Finnish and German geomorphologists meet in the boreal zone to drill holes into icy rivers and frozen ground. There are many ways to counter the lazy days between Christmas and the EGU meeting. One of the more promising ones is this: think of doing collaborative field work in February, in northern Sweden, on and around a frozen river. This is what Lina Polvi, Lovisa Lind (both Umeå University), Eliisa Lotsari …
- written by Henry Munack, University of Wollongong – In geomorphology, radiometric dating methods have been on the rise during the past decades. Notably cosmogenic nuclide applications and luminescence dating gained great popularity because they quantitatively capture geomorphic processes on their process-inherent timescales. To date, globally more than 4,200 in situ detrital catchment-averaged 10Be data are available, forming a highly variable, statistically resilient dataset that represents substantial effort of both capital and labour. However, published data are often still inaccessible …
With the EGU General Assembly just over a week away, we have a number of updates on the meeting, happening in Vienna from 8–13 April. Our conference organiser Copernicus has launched a great mobile app, and we recently announced a number of measures to reduce the environmental impact of the conference, from encouraging people to travel by train to introducing an option for participants to offset their carbon footprint. On the EGU blog, GeoLog, you can find posts about the city of Vienna, and a selection of Union-wide events, short courses and policy activities at the EGU General Assembly. For students taking part in the Outstanding Student Poster and PICO, there are also some tips from the judges on how to prepare a poster or PICO presentation.
This month, we have also announced that we are accepting nominations for EGU awards and medals. We encourage the EGU membership to consider gender, geographical and cultural balance when nominating outstanding Earth, planetary and space scientists at various career stages.
Last but not the least, we have also announced that we are launching two new publications at the 2018 General Assembly: a journal, Geoscience Communication, and a compilation, the Encyclopedia of Geosciences. Find these and many other EGU updates below.
