No. 31 (3/2015)
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International Association of Geomorphologists !Association Internationale des Géomorphologues IAG/AIG Newsletter No. 31 (3/2015) EUISMOD ELEMENTUM Well-developed terrace system along the Chuya river downstream from Aktash, Altain Mountains, Russia (picture: Piotr Migoń). Editorial I am pleased to inform theImag international community of geomorphologists that the new version Editor’s Note of the IAG/AIG website has been published at the same address: http://www.geomorph.org. The ! site was built with a new look, in accordance to the renewed IAG/AIG Newsletter style. The The success of the IAG/ AIG Newsletter depends content has been streamlined with an upper-side menu and the homepage has been setup as upon the contributions that “magazine-type”. This facilitates the immediate view of the latest posts, while an automatic archive we receive. On behalf of of the older ones is built. With respect to the older version new widgets on the right-side bar have IAG/AIG we would ask been included, linking to media and social networks, calendar and archives. I will be glad to you to assist us by supplying information receive any feedback, suggestion and material to enrich the content of the website. related to the forthcoming ! activities and innovations Marta Della Seta, IAG/AIG Webmaster in geomorphology in your Word of the President respective countries (commentaries, reviews of The Regional Conference “Gradualism vs Catastrophism in Landscape Evolution” that was held r e g i o n a l o r n a t i o n a l at the University of Altai in Barnaul from July 2 to July 4, 2015 was a true success from a scientific meetings and field trips, point of view and in a friendly atmosphere. The two pre- and post-conference excursions around summaries of issues Lake Baikal and in Altai were remarkably organised to the greatest satisfaction of all participants. pertinent to geomorphology and Numerous young geomorphologists attended, which is yet another proof of the dynamism of our announcements of future discipline. On behalf of the IAG, I wish to thank whole-heartedly the Russian Group of meetings and workshops). Geomorphologists, the organising committee and the scientific committee for the quality of their Your contributions should organisation. In the wake of this success, the website of the 9th International Conference of be forwarded to the IAG/ Geomorphology, which will be held at Vigyan Bawan, New Delhi (India) on November 6-11 2017 !AIG Publications Officer. on the theme “Geomorphology and Society”, has been set up by the Indian Institute of Published by Geomorphology. Make sure to visit it: www.icg2017.com Emmanuel Reynard, IAG/ I wish you all a happy new year. AIG Publications Officer ! University of Lausanne, La conférence régionale de l’AIG « Gradualism vs catastrophism in landscape evolution », qui Institute of Geography and Sustainability, Géopolis, s’est tenue du 2 au 4 juillet 2015 à l’Université de l’Altai à Barnaul, a été un succès tant du point CH – 1015 Lausanne. Tel de vue scientifique que de la convivialité. Les excursions pré-congrès autour du lac Baïkal et post- +41 21 692 30 65, congrès dans l’Altai ont été remarquablement organisées et ont enchanté les participants. La Mobile +41 79 331 72 présence nombreuse de jeunes géomorphologues a témoigné une nouvelle fois du dynamisme de 44. E-mail: notre discipline. Au nom de l’AIG, je tiens à remercier très chaleureusement le Groupe Russe de [email protected] Géomorphologie, le comité d’organisation de la conférence et le comité scientifique pour la ! qualité de leur organisation. Fort de ce nouveau succès, c’est avec optimisme que le site web de ! la 9ème Conférence internationale de géomorphologie « Géomorphologie et Société » qui aura lieu à Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, Inde, du 6 au 11 novembre 2017, a été mis en place par Deadline for the next l’Institut Indien des Géomorphologues. Connectez vous nombreux : www.icg2017.com issue: Je souhaite à tous une bonne année 2016. 31 st December 2015 Eric Fouache, IAG/AIG President In Memoriam – Harley Jesse Walker, Walker’s academic career actually began before finishing his Master’s degree. In 1950 on the 1921-2015 recommendation of Wilbur Zelinsky (then at the University ! of Georgia) he was hired as Assistant Professor to help set Harley Jesse Walker, 93, passed away May 30, 2015 up a geography program at Georgia State College in from complications following heart surgery. Like many in Atlanta. He was preceded the year before by his fellow U.S. geography’s first and second generations, Jesse Berkeley student, Reese Walker (no relation), also a Leighly Walker had rural Midwestern roots. He was born July 4, advisee and participant in the 1947 trip to Mexico. The two 1921 in Michigan. Soon after, his family moved from Walkers quickly laid the foundations for the department. In Michigan to Colorado and then in 1929 to California, a 1956 Jesse Walker was named Chair. During his tenure at few months before the stock market crash. The family lived Georgia State, Walker also managed to do course work much of the next decade in a tent encampment near Morro and fieldwork (in the Arctic) for his Ph.D. at Louisiana State Bay. Jesse’s father bought a boat and made a living from University (“The changing nature of man’s quest for food the sea, bartering fish for produce from inland farmers. and water as related to snow, ice and permafrost in the Jesse had multiple jobs during the Depression years, but American Arctic”) under the direction of Fred Kniffen. He managed to save enough in high school to start college at spent much of 1955-57 commuting by bus between Baton Berkeley in fall 1939. An avid explorer of local Rouge and Atlanta. At Georgia State he taught courses in environments, especially the coastal zone, majoring in anthropology and geology as well as geography and built geography was a natural outcome. With the onset of up the library’s holdings in geography. Walker oversaw the WWII, and Jesse’s childhood fascination with flying, he hiring of several additional geographers including fellow enlisted in the Naval flight school at the beginning of 1942. Berkeley student Campbell Pennington. Walker spent the During the war he served as a Marine Corps pilot in the academic year 1959-60 in Washington, DC with the Office Pacific theatre learning coastal and Pacific island of Naval Research under the direction of Evelyn Pruitt. In geography first hand. After the war he returned to Berkeley subsequent years, the ONR would be an important funding to complete his undergraduate studies (BA 1947), and then source for LSU geographers doing coastal studies and his Master’s degree in geography (MA 1954). His Master’s foreign area fieldwork. Receiving his PhD degree in 1960, thesis was a study of rainfall in Mexico under the direction Walker was invited by Kniffen and Russell to join the LSU of John Leighly, but the initial inspiration came from a trip to department as an assistant professor. In 1962 he became Mexico with Carl Sauer in the summer of 1947. the departmental chair. The 1960s were boom times in America, and academia was no exception. Jesse Walker and his wife during the first IAG Senior Luncheon in Paris in August 2013 (Photo: Monique Fort) The Department of Geography & Anthropology under establish international friendship. This was a man, who with Walker’s chairship (1962-1969) enjoyed healthy growth, Rita, has left a wonderful memory for all of us and fully doubling the number of faculty from five to 11. During this contributed from the gifts he had been given to the decade new geography faculty hires included: Charles wellbeing of our community. “Fritz” Gritzner, Milton Newton, Robert Muller, Jonathan Walker’s formal teaching career ended in 1984 with Sauer, Fred Simoons, and Donald Vermeer. Walker’s his retirement, but he continued to oversee theses and eclectic interests and abilities allowed him to teach a variety dissertations until 1990. With retirement Walker may have of courses, including climatology, geomorphology, human- been relieved of his teaching and administrative duties, but environment courses, and special offerings on his Arctic and if anything, the pace of his research and service only coastal research topics. Walker ended the decade with accelerated. A world traveller with an impressive roster of another ONR assignment, this time in London where he and places visited and conferences attended, in “retirement” his family spent the academic year. Walker served as one of U.S. geography’s most seasoned During the decade of the 1970s Walker continued to and effective informal ambassadors abroad. Accordingly, help build the department having expanded the physical he was awarded a number of honors, including an geography program in the directions of climatology and honorary doctorate from Uppsala, the Patron’s Medal of biogeography with new appointments and visiting scholars. the RGS, Distinguished Career Award from the AAG, and During the late 1960s through the 1970s Walker helped recognition from a number of national geographic societies bring in a series of visiting scholars for periods of a month on several continents. He was a Fellow of various scientific to a year. These visitors included: H. Aschmann, D. organizations including the American Association for the Brunsden, E.E. Evans, H.G. Gierloff-Emden, D.B. Prior, C.O. Advancement of Science. His publications (books, articles, Sauer, W.L. Thomas, J.K. Wright, and E. Yatsu. Similarly chapters) reflected his main research interests. Perhaps Walker was integrally involved in hosting symposia that foremost are the Arctic topics, especially on his Colville resulted in published volumes in the School of Geoscience’s River delta site (Alaska’s North Slope), his workshop during Geoscience and Man publication series.