Category: Past Seminars

Speaker/Affiliation: Mara Orescanin, Naval Postgraduate School  Title: From Grains of Sand to Coastal Margins: How Small River Mouths Play a Key Role in Coastal Geomorphology in California When: Wednesday, January 28 12:00pm PST  Location: EMS B214  Abstract: We often disregard the importance of small, low-flow rivers and their impact to coastal flooding, erosion, and water quality during dry seasons.  However, when wet…

Speaker/Affiliation: Ashley Grupenhoff, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo  Title: Changing fire regimes and fire management strategies in California’s diverse ecosystems When: Wednesday, January 21 12:00pm PST  Location: EMS B214  Abstract: Large wildfires are reshaping ecosystems across western North America as climate change and Euro-American fire suppression alter historical fire regimes. In chaparral ecosystems, increasing fire frequency threatens native plant communities, while in…

Speaker/Affiliation: Mike Oskin, UC Davis  Title: Earthquake-Cycle Modality Revealed by Paleoseismic Inter-Event Time Distributions When: Friday, January 16 12:00pm PST  Location: EMS B214  Abstract: Time-dependent seismic hazard models predict earthquake likelihood as a function of time elapsed since a prior event. The most widely applied model at present is the Brownian Passage Time (BPT), which is based on the periodic characteristic…

Speaker/Affiliation: Alicia Hotovec-Ellis, USGS Volcano Science Center’s California Volcano Observatory Title: Expanding the volcano monitoring toolset with repetitive seismicity and seismic velocity changes When: Friday, January 23 12:00pm PST  Location: EMS B214  Abstract: Earthquakes that share similar waveforms are a frequent feature of the seismicity at volcanoes. Studies suggest that temporal variations in the size, rate, and character of repeating seismicity are…

Speaker/Affiliation: Amy East, U.S. Geological Survey  Title: Understanding physical landscape effects of climate change: how much do we know, and what are we doing about it? When: Wednesday, January 14 12:00pm PST  Location: EMS B214  Abstract: Today, climate change is affecting virtually all terrestrial and nearshore settings. How well do we understand the physical landscape effects, and how have planning and economic…

Speaker/Affiliation: John Moores, York University  Title: Probing the Physics of Planetary Volatiles When: Friday, January 9 12:00pm PST  Location: EMS B214  Abstract: Any chemical species capable of moving or changing phase at the conditions which exist on or near a planetary surface is a volatile. While many volatiles are found in the atmospheres of planets, surface-atmosphere interactions with condensed phases can be…

Speaker/Affiliation: Genna Chiaro, U.S. Geological Survey    Title: An extensive and short-lived eruption of fayalite-bearing high-silica rhyolite at  Mono Craters during the mid-Holocene When: Wednesday, January 7 at 12:00 PM PST  Location: EMS B214  Abstract: The ~30 high-silica rhyolite domes and flows of the 15 km-long Mono Craters volcanic chain are some of the youngest rhyolitic volcanoes in the western United States. Their ages range from…

Speaker/Affiliation: William Rush, Santa Clara University Title: Yesterday’s Forecast: Elucidating Hydroclimate Variability Utilizing Past Climate Analogues Time: Wednesday, December 10 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210Abstract: In earth systems, it is said the present is the key to the past, but the past may also hold the key to understanding the future. In this talk, I will use past periods of climate…

Speaker/Affiliation: Betsy Madden, San Jose State University Title: TBA Time: Friday, December 12 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210 Abstract: TBA

Speaker/Affiliation: Ken Kamrin, UC Berkeley Title: Continuum modeling and simulation of dry and saturated granular media across applications Time: Friday, November 14 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210Abstract: Granular media are common in industry, the natural world, and our day-to-day lives, but have been historically resistant to modeling.  While grain-by-grain discrete element methods (DEM) exist, these are often far too costly at…

Speaker/Affiliation: Pulkit Singh, Stanford University Title: The rise and fall of carbonate skeletons Time: Wednesday, November 12 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210Abstract: Mineralized skeletons revolutionized marine ecosystems, yet their long-term biomass history has remained poorly constrained. We compiled data from ~7,400 carbonate thin sections spanning 540 million years to reconstruct proportional skeletal biomass produced by skeleton forming organisms across geologic time. The…

Speaker/Affiliation: Ching-Yao Lai, Stanford University Title: Changing ice in a warming climate: a data-driven approach Time: Wednesday, November 19 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210Abstract: One of the greatest uncertainties in sea-level rise projections arises from our incomplete understanding of how ice sheets would lose mass in a warming climate. In this talk, I will discuss two poorly understood aspects of ice…