Sedimentary deposits comprise important records of information necessary to 1) quantitatively reconstruct and predict landscape dynamics across a range of timescales, 2) identify ancient tectonic and climatic conditions on Earth, and 3) understand landscape response to tectonic and climatic forcing. An outstanding challenge for geoscientists is to decode this archive in order to understand the evolution of Earth’s environments over a range of temporal and spatial scales. To this end, the research interests of geomorphologists, sedimentologists, and stratigraphers have started to converge on processes that produce, transport, and deposit sediment over millennial timescales and beyond. From a landscape perspective, these processes include rare, potentially catastrophic events, which are not well sampled in the historical record, but are necessary for modeling and predicting landscape responses to changing climate and tectonic regimes. In the rock record, such processes can act as a filter and bias, obscure, or obliterate climatic and tectonic signals preserved in stratigraphy.

Understanding long-timescale landscape dynamics and the fidelity of the sedimentary record therefore demands new collaborative efforts between geomorphologists, sedimentologists, geodynamicists, and stratigraphers. MYRES V is a five-day workshop for early-career scientists aimed at helping to bridge interdisciplinary gaps and foster collaborations necessary to develop approaches that straddle long-timescale geomorphology and process-based stratigraphy. The first three days of the workshop will each focus on a different theme: 1) the erosional engine, 2) dynamics of sediment-routing systems, and 3) assembling the stratigraphic record. Presentations and group discussions each day will be guided by a set of five integrative themes that link the focus topics together, including: i) scaling, ii) uncertainty, iii) prediction, iv) sensitivity of geomorphic and stratigraphic systems to external forcing, and v) the transfer of signals into the sedimentary archive. The final two days of the workshop will revolve around discussion-stimulating field trips through erosional landscapes and stratigraphic deposits in Central Utah.

MYRES 2012 will bring together academic, industry, and government researchers with a wide variety of expertise in order to help build a global network of early-career scientists working collaboratively to improve our ability to understand and predict geomorphic and stratigraphic systems.