Thesis Defence - Congratulations to Michael Curran

The Department of Geography would like to recognize Michael Curran for the successful defence of his M.Sc. thesis.  Michael defended his work on April 16, 2020 - thesis title: "Bedrock Structural Influences in Fluvial Geomorphology". 

Congratulations Michael – well done!
 

Details of the Defence

Date: Thursday, April 16th, 11:00am

Venue: Remote, via BlueJeans

Thesis Title: “Bedrock Structural Influences in Fluvial Geomorphology”

Senior Supervisor: Jeremy Venditti

Supervisor: Doug Stead

Supervisor: John Clague

Internal Examiner: Allison Pfeiffer, Assistant Professor (Western Washington University)

Defence Chair: Rosemary Collard

Abstract:

Bedrock rivers largely set the pace for landscape evolution in unglaciated terrain and yet little is known about what controls their morphologies. We examine the role that geologic structure plays in the alignment and morphology of bedrock canyons at different scales. At the watershed scale, we examine the striking alignment of the Fraser River with the Fraser River Fault zone and its largely unmapped secondary fault structures. We explore how large sediment inputs cause deviations in canyon’s alignments and affect their morphological characteristics. At the reach scale, we investigate how geological structure influences bedrock canyon width. We find that width constrictions coincide with dominant sub-horizontal joint sets whereas widenings coincide with dominant sub-vertical joint sets. We consider this in the context of sequential constrictions and widenings and propose a conceptual model where sub-vertical jointing makes canyon walls more susceptible to failure due to river undercutting than horizontal jointing.