Earth Surface Processes
The focus of the Earth Surface Processes group is on earth and environmental processes. Graduate research areas include climatology, hydrology and surficial geoscience including geoarchaeology, geophysics, glacial sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy. Emphasis is placed on understanding the impacts of human activities on the physical environment, including changes in climate, land-use and surface and groundwater quality. Environmental interactions are also studied through interdisciplinary analysis of the archaeological record and through paleoenvironmental reconstruction of past climates and landscapes.
Information Box Group
Altaf Arain
Professor
Associate Member: Civil Engineering
Director, McMaster Centre for Climate Change
Dr. M. Altaf Arain is a Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society at McMaster University and the founding Director of the McMaster Centre for Climate Change. Dr. Arain holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and completed his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Hydrology at the University of Arizona. He has extensively studied forest ecosystems and their restoration using field measurements and ecosystem and hydrologic models. Dr Arain has established Turkey Point Observatory comprising four flux tower stations in Southern Ontario to examine the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on different-age and different species forest ecosystems. Turkey Point Observatory is part of Global Water Futures (GWF), global Fluxnet, Canadian FloodNet and North American Carbon Program. Dr. Arain has been involved in the development of the coupled Canadian Land Surface Scheme and the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CLASS-CTEM), used in the Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM) for climate predictions. He has also focused on investigating the effects of air pollution and electric mobility adoption on the environment and human health in urban areas in Canada.
Altaf Arain
Professor
Associate Member: Civil Engineering
Director, McMaster Centre for Climate Change
Janok Bhattacharya
Professor
Susan Cunningham Research Chair in Geology
Director, School of Earth, Environment & Society
Dr. Janok Bhattacharya research program is mostly focused on investigating the sequence stratigraphy and 3D facies architecture of shelf, shallow marine, paralic, and fluvial depositional systems. Although much industry exploration effort is currently focused on deepwater depositional systems, about 50% of global oil production is currently from shallow marine, paralic and fluvial strata. Despite the continued importance of these reservoir types, ours is one of the only research programs devoted to this important area.
I am also investigating the interrelationships between structure and stratigraphy as a paired process. Specific projects are aimed at examining the effects of meso-scale tectonic structure on high-frequency sequence stratigraphic architecture in foreland basins and the relationship between sedimentation processes and formation of growth faults associated with deltaic depositional systems.
My research program is founded on the fundamentals of sedimentology, fieldwork, facies analysis, and sequence stratigraphy. Our program also crosses the boundaries between geophysics and engineering disciplines and provides an important environment for teamwork and integration that we believe provides a model for industry.
Janok Bhattacharya
Professor
Susan Cunningham Research Chair in Geology
Director, School of Earth, Environment & Society
Joseph Boyce
Associate Professor
Dr. Joe Boyce is geoarchaeologist who studies Holocene landscape evolution and paleoenvironmental change using sediment records from lakes and coastal archaeological sites. His current research is focussed on the investigation of submerged landscapes and prehistoric underwater and terrestrial sites in the Great Lakes, Greece and western Turkey. His research interests also include the application of geophysical methods (ground-penetrating radar, seismic reflection, magnetometry) in archaeology, forensics and biogeosciences.
Carolyn Eyles
Professor Emeritus
Jointly in SEES and School of Interdisciplinary Science
Dr. Carolyn Eyles was the former Director of the Integrated Science Program and is a Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Science and the School of Geography & Earth Sciences. She holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia, a postgraduate certificate of Education from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in geology from the University of Toronto. Her research interests lie in the fields of glacial sedimentology and environmental geology, and she has worked extensively in Alaska, Australia, Brazil, Iceland, Norway, Great Britain and Canada. She has over 75 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books and has co-authored two first year geoscience textbooks. Dr. Eyles is a practicing Professional Geoscientist of Ontario (P.Geo), and is a member of the Geological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Geological Institute. Dr. Eyles is a 3M National Teaching Fellow and has won numerous teaching awards including an OCUFA Teaching Award, an Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance Teaching Award, and the McMaster President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction. Her current teaching duties include Earth Science components of interdisciplinary courses in the Integrated Science program and senior/graduate level courses in glacial sedimentology. She chaired the committee that designed and developed the interdisciplinary Honours B.Sc. Integrated Science Program and served as the program Director from 2009-2015.
Carolyn Eyles
Professor Emeritus
Jointly in SEES and School of Interdisciplinary Science
Alemu Gonsamo
Assistant Professor
Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Remote Sensing of Terrestrial Ecosystems
My research areas are on ground, airborne, and satellite remote sensing of vegetation from the leaf to the globe with special focus on:
- plant structural and photosynthetic traits;
- land surface and carbon uptake phenology;
- terrestrial ecosystem primary productivity and greenness;
- global change impact on terrestrial ecosystem productivity; and
- terrestrial carbon cycle modelling.
I have done, and am doing, remote sensing of vegetation studies at ecological monitoring sites (e.g., eddy covariance tower networks); on improved product development at regional scale (e.g., leaf area index, primary productivity and land surface phenology); and on global change impact assessment on terrestrial ecosystem productivity at regional (e.g., circumpolar land surface phenology and atmospheric CO2 seasonality) and global scales. Besides remote sensing data, I use ground measurements of plant biophysical variables, photosynthetic traits, atmospheric CO2 concentration, eddy covariance CO2 fluxes and plant phenology; gridded climate data records; terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle models; and Earth System Model (ESM) outputs.
Alemu Gonsamo
Assistant Professor
Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Remote Sensing of Terrestrial Ecosystems
Eduard Reinhardt
Professor
(Acting) Associate Director, Graduate Studies (SEES)
Dr. Eduard G. Reinhardt is a micropaleontologist studying how groundwater condition changed over climate cycles using cave sediments. His recent research in the Yucatan of Mexico focusses on reconstructing the potability of groundwater through drought cycles during the late Holocene. This has implications for the decline of Maya civilizations but also for future groundwater management in the coastal zone.
Eduard Reinhardt
Professor
(Acting) Associate Director, Graduate Studies (SEES)
James Smith
Professor
My primary research interests are in Subsurface Contaminant Hydrology. That includes Contaminant Fate and Transport within the subdisciplines of Hydrogeology (below the water table) and Vadose Zone Hydrology (above the water table). I am particularly interested in the study of multiphase flow and unsaturated flow in porous media, i.e. when more than one fluid is present. My research approach emphasises highly controlled laboratory based experiments to investigate primary mechanisms and processes controlling fluid flow and contaminant transport. In addition, numerical modelling is used to analyse laboratory and field data, design further experiments, and investigate the potential implications of the research results.
This research improves and extends our fundamental understanding of Subsurface Contaminant Hydrology and the technologies used in Groundwater and Soil Contamination Investigations, Monitoring, Simulation, and Remediation.
Altaf Arain
Professor
Associate Member: Civil Engineering
Director, McMaster Centre for Climate Change
Dr. M. Altaf Arain is a Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society at McMaster University and the founding Director of the McMaster Centre for Climate Change. Dr. Arain holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and completed his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Hydrology at the University of Arizona. He has extensively studied forest ecosystems and their restoration using field measurements and ecosystem and hydrologic models. Dr Arain has established Turkey Point Observatory comprising four flux tower stations in Southern Ontario to examine the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on different-age and different species forest ecosystems. Turkey Point Observatory is part of Global Water Futures (GWF), global Fluxnet, Canadian FloodNet and North American Carbon Program. Dr. Arain has been involved in the development of the coupled Canadian Land Surface Scheme and the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CLASS-CTEM), used in the Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM) for climate predictions. He has also focused on investigating the effects of air pollution and electric mobility adoption on the environment and human health in urban areas in Canada.
Altaf Arain
Professor
Associate Member: Civil Engineering
Director, McMaster Centre for Climate Change
Dr. M. Altaf Arain is a Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society at McMaster University and the founding Director of the McMaster Centre for Climate Change. Dr. Arain holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and completed his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Hydrology at the University of Arizona. He has extensively studied forest ecosystems and their restoration using field measurements and ecosystem and hydrologic models. Dr Arain has established Turkey Point Observatory comprising four flux tower stations in Southern Ontario to examine the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on different-age and different species forest ecosystems. Turkey Point Observatory is part of Global Water Futures (GWF), global Fluxnet, Canadian FloodNet and North American Carbon Program. Dr. Arain has been involved in the development of the coupled Canadian Land Surface Scheme and the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CLASS-CTEM), used in the Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM) for climate predictions. He has also focused on investigating the effects of air pollution and electric mobility adoption on the environment and human health in urban areas in Canada.
Janok Bhattacharya
Professor
Susan Cunningham Research Chair in Geology
Director, School of Earth, Environment & Society
Dr. Janok Bhattacharya research program is mostly focused on investigating the sequence stratigraphy and 3D facies architecture of shelf, shallow marine, paralic, and fluvial depositional systems. Although much industry exploration effort is currently focused on deepwater depositional systems, about 50% of global oil production is currently from shallow marine, paralic and fluvial strata. Despite the continued importance of these reservoir types, ours is one of the only research programs devoted to this important area.
I am also investigating the interrelationships between structure and stratigraphy as a paired process. Specific projects are aimed at examining the effects of meso-scale tectonic structure on high-frequency sequence stratigraphic architecture in foreland basins and the relationship between sedimentation processes and formation of growth faults associated with deltaic depositional systems.
My research program is founded on the fundamentals of sedimentology, fieldwork, facies analysis, and sequence stratigraphy. Our program also crosses the boundaries between geophysics and engineering disciplines and provides an important environment for teamwork and integration that we believe provides a model for industry.
Janok Bhattacharya
Professor
Susan Cunningham Research Chair in Geology
Director, School of Earth, Environment & Society
Dr. Janok Bhattacharya research program is mostly focused on investigating the sequence stratigraphy and 3D facies architecture of shelf, shallow marine, paralic, and fluvial depositional systems. Although much industry exploration effort is currently focused on deepwater depositional systems, about 50% of global oil production is currently from shallow marine, paralic and fluvial strata. Despite the continued importance of these reservoir types, ours is one of the only research programs devoted to this important area.
I am also investigating the interrelationships between structure and stratigraphy as a paired process. Specific projects are aimed at examining the effects of meso-scale tectonic structure on high-frequency sequence stratigraphic architecture in foreland basins and the relationship between sedimentation processes and formation of growth faults associated with deltaic depositional systems.
My research program is founded on the fundamentals of sedimentology, fieldwork, facies analysis, and sequence stratigraphy. Our program also crosses the boundaries between geophysics and engineering disciplines and provides an important environment for teamwork and integration that we believe provides a model for industry.
Joseph Boyce
Associate Professor
Dr. Joe Boyce is geoarchaeologist who studies Holocene landscape evolution and paleoenvironmental change using sediment records from lakes and coastal archaeological sites. His current research is focussed on the investigation of submerged landscapes and prehistoric underwater and terrestrial sites in the Great Lakes, Greece and western Turkey. His research interests also include the application of geophysical methods (ground-penetrating radar, seismic reflection, magnetometry) in archaeology, forensics and biogeosciences.
Joseph Boyce
Associate Professor
Dr. Joe Boyce is geoarchaeologist who studies Holocene landscape evolution and paleoenvironmental change using sediment records from lakes and coastal archaeological sites. His current research is focussed on the investigation of submerged landscapes and prehistoric underwater and terrestrial sites in the Great Lakes, Greece and western Turkey. His research interests also include the application of geophysical methods (ground-penetrating radar, seismic reflection, magnetometry) in archaeology, forensics and biogeosciences.
Carolyn Eyles
Professor Emeritus
Jointly in SEES and School of Interdisciplinary Science
Dr. Carolyn Eyles was the former Director of the Integrated Science Program and is a Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Science and the School of Geography & Earth Sciences. She holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia, a postgraduate certificate of Education from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in geology from the University of Toronto. Her research interests lie in the fields of glacial sedimentology and environmental geology, and she has worked extensively in Alaska, Australia, Brazil, Iceland, Norway, Great Britain and Canada. She has over 75 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books and has co-authored two first year geoscience textbooks. Dr. Eyles is a practicing Professional Geoscientist of Ontario (P.Geo), and is a member of the Geological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Geological Institute. Dr. Eyles is a 3M National Teaching Fellow and has won numerous teaching awards including an OCUFA Teaching Award, an Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance Teaching Award, and the McMaster President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction. Her current teaching duties include Earth Science components of interdisciplinary courses in the Integrated Science program and senior/graduate level courses in glacial sedimentology. She chaired the committee that designed and developed the interdisciplinary Honours B.Sc. Integrated Science Program and served as the program Director from 2009-2015.
Carolyn Eyles
Professor Emeritus
Jointly in SEES and School of Interdisciplinary Science
Dr. Carolyn Eyles was the former Director of the Integrated Science Program and is a Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Science and the School of Geography & Earth Sciences. She holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia, a postgraduate certificate of Education from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in geology from the University of Toronto. Her research interests lie in the fields of glacial sedimentology and environmental geology, and she has worked extensively in Alaska, Australia, Brazil, Iceland, Norway, Great Britain and Canada. She has over 75 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books and has co-authored two first year geoscience textbooks. Dr. Eyles is a practicing Professional Geoscientist of Ontario (P.Geo), and is a member of the Geological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Geological Institute. Dr. Eyles is a 3M National Teaching Fellow and has won numerous teaching awards including an OCUFA Teaching Award, an Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance Teaching Award, and the McMaster President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction. Her current teaching duties include Earth Science components of interdisciplinary courses in the Integrated Science program and senior/graduate level courses in glacial sedimentology. She chaired the committee that designed and developed the interdisciplinary Honours B.Sc. Integrated Science Program and served as the program Director from 2009-2015.
Alemu Gonsamo
Assistant Professor
Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Remote Sensing of Terrestrial Ecosystems
My research areas are on ground, airborne, and satellite remote sensing of vegetation from the leaf to the globe with special focus on:
- plant structural and photosynthetic traits;
- land surface and carbon uptake phenology;
- terrestrial ecosystem primary productivity and greenness;
- global change impact on terrestrial ecosystem productivity; and
- terrestrial carbon cycle modelling.
I have done, and am doing, remote sensing of vegetation studies at ecological monitoring sites (e.g., eddy covariance tower networks); on improved product development at regional scale (e.g., leaf area index, primary productivity and land surface phenology); and on global change impact assessment on terrestrial ecosystem productivity at regional (e.g., circumpolar land surface phenology and atmospheric CO2 seasonality) and global scales. Besides remote sensing data, I use ground measurements of plant biophysical variables, photosynthetic traits, atmospheric CO2 concentration, eddy covariance CO2 fluxes and plant phenology; gridded climate data records; terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle models; and Earth System Model (ESM) outputs.
Alemu Gonsamo
Assistant Professor
Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Remote Sensing of Terrestrial Ecosystems
My research areas are on ground, airborne, and satellite remote sensing of vegetation from the leaf to the globe with special focus on:
- plant structural and photosynthetic traits;
- land surface and carbon uptake phenology;
- terrestrial ecosystem primary productivity and greenness;
- global change impact on terrestrial ecosystem productivity; and
- terrestrial carbon cycle modelling.
I have done, and am doing, remote sensing of vegetation studies at ecological monitoring sites (e.g., eddy covariance tower networks); on improved product development at regional scale (e.g., leaf area index, primary productivity and land surface phenology); and on global change impact assessment on terrestrial ecosystem productivity at regional (e.g., circumpolar land surface phenology and atmospheric CO2 seasonality) and global scales. Besides remote sensing data, I use ground measurements of plant biophysical variables, photosynthetic traits, atmospheric CO2 concentration, eddy covariance CO2 fluxes and plant phenology; gridded climate data records; terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle models; and Earth System Model (ESM) outputs.
Eduard Reinhardt
Professor
(Acting) Associate Director, Graduate Studies (SEES)
Dr. Eduard G. Reinhardt is a micropaleontologist studying how groundwater condition changed over climate cycles using cave sediments. His recent research in the Yucatan of Mexico focusses on reconstructing the potability of groundwater through drought cycles during the late Holocene. This has implications for the decline of Maya civilizations but also for future groundwater management in the coastal zone.
Eduard Reinhardt
Professor
(Acting) Associate Director, Graduate Studies (SEES)
Dr. Eduard G. Reinhardt is a micropaleontologist studying how groundwater condition changed over climate cycles using cave sediments. His recent research in the Yucatan of Mexico focusses on reconstructing the potability of groundwater through drought cycles during the late Holocene. This has implications for the decline of Maya civilizations but also for future groundwater management in the coastal zone.
James Smith
Professor
My primary research interests are in Subsurface Contaminant Hydrology. That includes Contaminant Fate and Transport within the subdisciplines of Hydrogeology (below the water table) and Vadose Zone Hydrology (above the water table). I am particularly interested in the study of multiphase flow and unsaturated flow in porous media, i.e. when more than one fluid is present. My research approach emphasises highly controlled laboratory based experiments to investigate primary mechanisms and processes controlling fluid flow and contaminant transport. In addition, numerical modelling is used to analyse laboratory and field data, design further experiments, and investigate the potential implications of the research results.
This research improves and extends our fundamental understanding of Subsurface Contaminant Hydrology and the technologies used in Groundwater and Soil Contamination Investigations, Monitoring, Simulation, and Remediation.
James Smith
Professor
My primary research interests are in Subsurface Contaminant Hydrology. That includes Contaminant Fate and Transport within the subdisciplines of Hydrogeology (below the water table) and Vadose Zone Hydrology (above the water table). I am particularly interested in the study of multiphase flow and unsaturated flow in porous media, i.e. when more than one fluid is present. My research approach emphasises highly controlled laboratory based experiments to investigate primary mechanisms and processes controlling fluid flow and contaminant transport. In addition, numerical modelling is used to analyse laboratory and field data, design further experiments, and investigate the potential implications of the research results.
This research improves and extends our fundamental understanding of Subsurface Contaminant Hydrology and the technologies used in Groundwater and Soil Contamination Investigations, Monitoring, Simulation, and Remediation.