8th IAG/AIG International Conference on Geomorphology - Program session 07A

The GEOMORPH-X WG will start its full activities during the IAG 2013 Conference held in Paris.
Registration procedure is now open on the dedicated website: Paris2013. The GEOMORPH-X session is numbered 7A and will be held on Friday 30th, August, 11:00 to 12:45.

Objectives of the session

The question of the linearity or non-linearity of the evolution of landforms has lain at the core of geomorphology since its beginnings as a scientific discipline.  The place of extreme events in the geomorphologic continuum extends major questions on frequency/magnitude, stationarity, deterministic chaos and landform resilience that have been debated in our community for decades.  This session will examine how fundamental are extreme events in the evolution of landforms.  Are they solely spectacular but local anomalies?  How do they interfere with geomorphic system dynamics?  Are they epiphenomena or driving forces?  We would like to invite communications dealing with historical or epistemological dimensions as well as case studies in continental, coastal, or submarine geomorphology.

Program of the session (oral communications)

How does "reshaping" Darwin's "Subsidence Theory of Atoll Formation" broaden the scope of tsunami hazard assessment for the Pacific Islands?
J.P. TERRY (Singapore, SINGAPORE )

Large boulders accumulation along the NE Maltese coast: stormwaves or tsunami event?
S. BIOLCHI (Trieste, ITALY )

Dating tsunami deposits triggered by the catastrophic flank collapse of Fogo Island, Cape Verde Islands: insights from ESR, U/Th and 36Cl ages
G. RIXHON (Cologne, GERMANY )

Effects of the 1755 tsunami on the southern coast of the city of Cadiz (Spain)
L. MENANTEAU (Nantes, FRANCE )

The application of Ground Penetrating Radar analysis to investigate the impact and recovery of a coastal dunes and the recurrence interval of palaeotsunami events on the coast of Phra Thong Island, Thailand
A. SWITZER (Singapore, SINGAPORE )

Constraining bedrock erosion rates and processes during extreme flood events: case study in Iceland
M. ATTAL (Edinburgh, UNITED KINGDOM )

Geomorphic implications of differential changes in the frequency of large rainstorms of varying return period: evidence from tropical and temperate environments, Borneo and South Wales 1906-2012
R.P.D. WALSH (Swansea, UNITED KINGDOM )

ICS 2014 - Hazards and extreme events in coastal areas

Celebrating 30 years of the Coastal Education & Research Foundation (CERF) and the Journal of Coastal Research (JCR), the International Coastal Symposium will be held in Durban, April 13th-17th 2014.

We deeply encourage you to submit an abstract to the Coastal hazards and extreme events session.

http://ics2014.org
Important dates : 

• Call for 1-page abstracts: 30th April 2013
• Close of Call for Abstracts: 1st August 2013

Proposed actions of the Working Group

1 - Publication of a website

Including several topics like:

-          "X site of the month" (study case)

-          List of papers published in peer journal, books published.

-          List of upcoming conferences or sessions on extreme events in geosciences.

-    Relevant informations will be published regularly on a social network page.

2 - Information letter

Publish on a quarterly basis, this information letter will gather main information posted on the website, and will be diffuse to geomorphology lists.  This letter will be largely distributed and will increase the awareness of other scientists, stake-holders, planners, authorities and general public about the importance of extreme geomorphic events.

3 - Literature

Publication of State-of-the-Art research on geomorphological extreme events.

Prepare and publish a manual “Extreme events in geomorphology” under the umbrella of the International Association of Geomorphologists.

4 - Courses

To organize and promote short courses for young geomorphologists in different countries (e.g Annual Young Geomorphologists Day, organized by the G.F.G in France), including regional conference of the IAG.

5 - Conferences

Organization of special sessions within the framework of national, regional and international conferences (IAG, AGU, EGU, AOGS, etc.), symposiums, field workshops and round table discussions looking towards collaborative research.

Scientific background of the Working Group

The question of the linearity or non-linearity of the evolution of landforms has lain at the core of geomorphology since its beginnings as a scientific discipline. Following the seminal theory of W.M. Davis, relief creation started with a tectonic accident that gave “birth” to a volume of relief which normal erosion will shape afterwards.  Then, the erosion cycle will progressively erase the relief towards the realization of the perfect peneplain – except if some “accidents” happened again.  Following climatic geomorphology paradigms, landforms tend to be in equilibrium with regional climate, but sudden changes in thermal or precipitation regimes can lead to strong disequilibrium, enhancing or slowing erosion rates.  In the 1960’s, Wolman and Miller introduced the magnitude/frequency concept and recent epistemological advances enhance the non-linear dynamics of geomorphic systems (e.g. Phillips, 2006).  Extreme events (X-events: extreme rains, mega-tsunamis, catastrophic landslides, etc.) are rare, sometimes never observed in historic times, and have long been regarded as somewhat ‘suspicious’ by the scientific community.  The first reason is that they do not fit well with gradualist ideas that dominate earth sciences; the second is that geologic arguments mobilized by the catastrophism theory (diluvianism) frequently anchored their roots in considerations more religious than scientific.

Sometimes, acceptance of extreme phenomena as providing possible explanations for particular landforms takes decades (such as the Missoula Lakes catastrophic floods (jökulhlaup) proposed by Bretz in the 1920’s for the formation of the Channeled Scabland was not accepted before the 1960’s).  New catastrophism, introduced in the early 1980’s, opened a new way to study high-energy events and their impacts in the geological record.  More and more studies reveal that extreme events might have played a role in the evolution of landforms in several regions of the world: sturzströme have been recognized in many places (Dawson et al., 1986; Schneider et al., 1999), catastrophic landslides are widespread in high mountain areas (Evans et al., 2006; Hewitt et al., 2008; Kojan & Hutchinson, 1978; Fort & Peulvast, 1995, etc.) and giant submarines slope failures have been discovered in recent years (Moore et al, 1989; Nisbet & Piper, 1998).  Beyond these numerous examples, it is questionable how fundamental are extreme event in the evolution of landforms.  Are they solely spectacular but local anomalies?  How do they interfere with geomorphic system dynamics?  Are they epiphenomena or driving forces?

It is time now for geomorphologists to start a common debate on the significance of these spectacular events and their resultant landforms in the geomorphic evolution of the Earth surface. The debate on the place of extreme events in the geomorphic continuum extends the major question of frequency/magnitude, stationarity, deterministic chaos, landform resilience, etc., developed in our community for decades. Some reflections on extreme events lie also within the sphere of natural hazards assessment, so this WG outputs will naturally feed the geomorphologic debate, and extend in a more theoretical view works by the WG IAGeomhaz. Some extreme events legacies are now popular scenery sites, so connections between this WG and Geomorphosites WG will be strong.