Sneak preview of a forthcoming animated feature. Below is a sequence of topographic scans taken from a single run. Data are a bit raw, but they still offer a sense of how active the berm could be. One pass with the laser along the three meter length of the berm required five cross-shore swaths (here…
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Race to a spectacular beginning (overwash experiments conclude, for now)
Today was my last on the SAFL shop floor. What a spectacular visit this has been. I’m grateful to both the NCED2 program and the British Society for Geomorphology for the opportunity to work here in Minneapolis these past two weeks. Rich discussions, incredible facilities, and so much enthusiasm from so many people – not…
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“Someone’s gotta help me dig…” (Day 3 @stcNCED @saflumn)
Been singing to myself this line from Father John Misty en route to the lab these past couple of mornings. Today was one of learning systems. Chris Ellis found a rotameter, introduced me to thread-seal tape (Teflon tape), and gave me a plumbing problem to work out (I still managed to install it upside-down the…
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Day 2 @stcNCED @saflumn – check your levels
Yesterday’s trial produced one overwash lobe; today’s produced two. Getting there. I spent much of today off by an eighth of an inch. I misaligned the blocks on the screed we’re using to level the planar surfaces, reminding myself of the classic construction adage to “measure twice, cut once.” After a lot of frowning and…
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“Morphodynamics of breaching” experiments @stcNCED @saflumn – Day 1
It almost worked the first time. I’m writing from the University of Minnesota’s St. Anthony Falls Lab (SAFL) in Minneapolis, home of the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED). Thanks to Chris Paola, I’m here as a visiting scientist, funded by NCED and a small research grant from the British Society for Geomorphology to run…
Read MoreCruising-altitude geography (Kujalleq & James Bay)
Yesterday I flew from London to Minneapolis – a westbound and therefore endless afternoon, a trick played against winter’s abstemious daytime clock. I’m in Minneapolis for a two-week stint at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, where I’ll be running some experiments in a custom-rigged sandbox. But more on that in posts to come. Right now I’m…
Read MoreMalta’d (field notes and photos)
April took me to Malta with our second-year Marine Geography undergraduates. (I know it’s now July, and April was a while ago. I’m doing my best here.) While Roo Perkins led one crew on snorkeling surveys of biodiversity in a selection of bays around the island, Rhoda Ballinger & I led a second group on…
Read MoreCoastal infrastructure (for @ebgoldstein)
Colleague and friend Evan Goldstein collects “pictures of infrastructure” that he sorts into various types. In October, riding along on a field course for our second-year undergraduates, I had the opportunity to tour several coastal engineering installations across the Netherlands. I tried to walk around with Evan’s eye for infrastructure. Easy, superficially, because flood-management infrastructure…
Read MoreContinental divides
I had the opportunity during holiday time with family back in the States to bop around in the Sangre de Cristo Range, near the Spanish Peaks, in southern Colorado. If you count the Atlantic Ocean as one (kind of) continental divide (lowercase) west of the UK, we were atop the next one over (uppercase) –…
Read MoreJersey time (Channel Islands dispatch)
Back from a brilliant week on Jersey, in the Channel Islands, with the second-year Marine Geography students. After an island reconnoitre last Sunday, we spent Monday walking beaches; Tuesday in the Jersey Museum and Maritime Museum (with market-stall lunch at the Central Market in St Helier); Wednesday with officials from the States of Jersey Department…
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The Environmental Dynamics Lab (EDL) 