2005 Environmental and Life Sciences Seminar Series

Dr Simon Day

The way in which volcanic landslides lead to tsunamis in our region will be explored at a Macquarie University physical geography seminar on June 6.

Dr Simon Day of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of California will revisit one of the best-described collapses of this type to occur - that of Ritter Island in Papua New Guinea on March 13, 1888. He will compare and contrast this event with the May 18, 1980 collapse of Mount St Helens, to show how lateral collapses at island volcanoes may also provide ‘scale models’ of much larger but less frequent collapses at oceanic island volcanoes.

This seminar, to be held at 1pm on Monday 6 June in Room E6A102, is just one of a number of upcoming seminars hosted by the Division of Environmental and Life Sciences (ELS) at Macquarie University.

The seminars cover a wide range of topics associated with ongoing research projects within the Division’s many Departments. They are delivered by academics, research staff, and students from within the Division, as well as guest speakers from other institutions and industry.

Other seminars to be given in June include:

• Spatial Mobility in and Around Meekatharra, Western Australia by Sarah Prout, PhD student in the Department of Human Geography. Tuesday 7 June at 4pm in Room E7A829.

• The SE Asia tsunami disaster - impacts and effects in the Maldives by Dale Dominey-Howes, Department of Physical Geography. Thursday 16 June, at 1pm in Room E5A143.

• Evolutionary Geomorphology: Thresholds and nonlinearity in landform response to environmental change by Professor Jonathan D Phillips, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky. Tuesday 21 June, 1pm in Room E6A102.

For a full listing of ELS seminars for 2005, please visit http://www.els.mq.edu.au/news/seminars.htm This webpage also has more information on each talk, as well as contact details should you wish to attend.

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