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RIVER TO ROCK II RESEARCH CONFERENCE





May 18-21, 2026
Venue:  Colorado Mesa University, Grand Junction, Colorado USA

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

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION OPENS IN OCTOBER - GET READY!

The conveners would like to invite you to a conference consisting of a three-day meeting and one-day field trip.


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:  
  • Eilen Wohl (Colorado State University),
  • Irina Overeem (University of Colorado at Boulder), 
  • Stephen Tooth (Abeystwyth University), 
  • Kathryn Stack Morgan (NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory), 
  • Eric Barefoot (University of California, Riverside), and 
  • Anastasia Piliouras (Pennsylvania State University).


Sessions will be organized around these topics:

1.    How can the sedimentary record of ancient river deposits help improve management of modern rivers? 

2.    How do Anthropocene rivers differ from Holocene or older examples? 

3.    How does rapid climate change impact fluvial systems?

4.    How do we better apply cross-disciplinary approaches to tackling 'real-world' challenges in fluvial environments, such as climate      change resilience?

5.    How do fluvial processes impact carbon storage across a range of scales?

6.    How do we better understand the controls on resource distribution (and subsequent management) in fluvial deposits?

7.    What aspects of river networks best inform our understanding of modern and ancient ecosystems and landscape mosaics?

8.    How can we relate our understanding of modern and ancient ecosystems to restoring rivers and floodplains to their ‘natural’ state?

9.    How do we constrain and compare river variability across space and time?

10.  Insights from physical experiments and numerical modelling.

11.    What are the closest Earth analogues to Mars' river deposits?








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