Tuesday 6 October 2020: 2020 Geoscience NZ Hochstetter lecture – How tectonic and surface processes interact to shape the landscape

Tuesday 6 October 2020 – 6:00 PM

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Munroe and Vautier Street, Napier
Dr. Phaedra Upton

The landscape serves as a link between the solid Earth and the atmosphere. At many spatial and temporal scales, landscape morphology and topography provide a constraint on the tectonics of the Earth and processes active within it. To unravel these, we need to understand the complex relationships between surface processes, their drivers and the rocks upon which they act. Phaedra will explore recent developments in modelling tectonics and surface processes within a single deformational framework. She will focus on collisional settings such as New Zealand’s Southern Alps, SE Alaska and the Himalaya where rapid uplift combines with vigorous climate regimes to create dynamic landscapes.
Dr. Phaedra Upton: After a first class honours degree in Chemistry, Phaedra completed a PhD in Geology, and is now the Geodynamics Team Leader at GNS Science, where she has worked for the last 11 years.  She has widely published on oblique collisional plate boundaries including the Southern Alps.  More recently, tectonic geomorphology has become her main focus.