River to Rock II Research Conference

Grand Junction, CO, USA - 18-21 May 2026

The Conveners would like to invite you to a conference consisting of a three-day meeting and a one-day field trip in Grand Junction, Colorado, USA.

“In order to support societal resilience to environmental change we need a better understanding of what controls river systems through study of a range of recent and sedimentary analogues, as well as numerical modelling of the evolution of these systems over time and space. Looking ahead, the ancient fluvial record potentially provides critical context for decision-making and landscape management in modern rivers, and our understanding of river deposits is a driving factor in our ability to manage subsurface resources, including groundwater, hydrocarbons, or sequestered CO2”.

The program of invited keynote speakers includes Ellen Wohl (Colorado State University), Irina Overeem (University of Colorado at Boulder), Stephen Tooth (University of Aberystwyth), Kathryn Stack Morgan (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Eric Barefoot (University of California, Riverside), and Anastasia Piliouras (Pennsylvania State University).

Questions to discuss:

• How does rapid climate change impact fluvial systems?
• What aspects of ancient river deposits best inform our understanding of ancient ecosystems and landscape mosaics?
• How can the sedimentary record of ancient river deposits help improve management of modern rivers?
• How do Anthropocene rivers differ from Holocene or older examples?
• How do we constrain and compare river variability across space and time?
• How do fluvial processes impact carbon storage across a range of scales?
• What are the closest Earth analogues to Mars' river deposits?

Conveners: Stephanie Davidson, Peter Clift (University College London), and Liz Hajek (Pennsylvania State University).

Field trip leaders: Colorado Mesa University - Andres Aslan, Rex Cole, and Javier Tellez Rodriguez