Abstract
There are few regions of the Earth that change more rapidly and consistently than the coastal zone. Despite this transience and its susceptibility to hazards, the coast continues to attract humans and development. Additionally, coastal deposits can hold important information about environmental changes in Earth's history, such as variations in relative sea level, sediment supply, or tectonics. Accordingly, deeper knowledge of the formative and destructive processes operating at the shore is of both scientific interest and societal importance. In this presentation, I will introduce a moving-boundary framework aimed to advance our quantitative understanding of the key processes that drive the evolution of low-lying coastal landscapes such as barrier islands, fluvial deltas, and continental shelves. I will also provide examples of how this mathematical framework can be applied at both field and laboratory scales.
About the Speaker
Dr. Lorenzo-Trueba’s research aims to understand the fundamental controls upon the formation and evolution of the morphology of modern and ancient coastal environments, including fluvial deltas, barrier islands, marsh and mangrove ecosystems, and reef islands. He primarily studies them through the creation of novel conceptual and computer models that focus on long-timescale evolution, from decades to millions of years. Dr. Lorenzo-Trueba earned his B.E. in Civil Engineering from the Technical University of Madrid, Spain, before going on to earn his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota. He is currently an Associate Professor at Montclair State University, New Jersey.
Host: Professor Leonardo Chamorro
