My name is Emma Harrison. I grew up in Arizona and went to Arizona State University. I started doing field work early on with Ron Dorn, a geomorphologist in the Department of Geography. He put me on a project designing an online lab about rock weathering that looked at the features developing on petroglyph panels. I loved spending time with these human imprints in the desert. I got hooked.

Tectonic uplift – or baselevel fall – triggers progressive waves of erosion upstream through river networks and, eventually, to hillslopes. In a landscape that is adjusting to rock uplift, knickpoints migrating upstream often separate slowly eroding “relict” topography from rapidly eroding, steep topography that is adjusting to a new baselevel. My research tries to understand how soil – a critical natural resource – responds to state change and environmental or tectonic perturbations.

Learn more about Dr. Emma Harrisson