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Chris Duncan

Earth System Science, GIS, Remote Sensing

I trace my interests in geoscience research and education to several inspirational introductory courses and professors in Geology, Geography, and Physics at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. After college, I taught high school earth science and physics and worked in software design and development for a number of years. In 1991 I started graduate work in Geological Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, studying the interactions of tectonics, topography, climate, and erosion in active mountain belts with Bryan Isacks. After completing my Ph.D. in 1997 I did post-doctoral research at Cornell's Theory Center before joining the faculty in Geosciences at The University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1998.

I study the interactions of tectonic, climatic, and erosional processes by examining their effects and dependencies on topography, particularly in active mountain belts such as the Himalayas and Andes. This work uses GIS, remote sensing, and numerical modeling methods to integrate and synthesize geologic, geophysical, climatic, hydrologic, and modeling data spanning a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. When pressed for a concise label, I've sometimes gone for "digital geomorphologist".

Current research projects include:

• Topographic evolution in active mountain belts, for example in Bhutan
• Eurasian snow cover and the Indian monsoon
• Snow cover, snowline, and freezing-level variations as indicators of climate change, for example, this 6.5Mb animation of mean monthly freezing levels
• Numerical modeling of uplift and denudation in active orogens (here's a sample animation from Masek & Duncan, 1998)
• Global land surface and climate change assessment from remote sensing data
• Graduate work done at Cornell

Some diversions (things people have asked me for or about):

• Images of the continents rendered from GTOPO30 using OpenDX
• Various centers of the lower 48 states of the USA
• Distribution of high-elevation populations of the world
• Map of the Connecticut River drainage basin for the book Dinosaurs, Dunes, and Drifting Continents: The Geology of the Connecticut River Valley by Richard D. Little
• Peculiar view of Massachusetts topography for a department publication

Peer-reviewed Publications:

• Duncan, C.C., Masek, J.G., and Fielding, E.J., 2003, "How steep are the Himalaya? Characteristics and implications of along-strike topographic variations", Geology, 31, 75-78.
• Diaz, H., Eischeid, J.K., Duncan, C.C., and Bradley, R.S., 2003, "Variability of Freezing Levels, Melting Season Indicators, and Snow Cover in Selected High-Elevation Regions Around the Globe in the Last 50 Years", Climatic Change, 59, 33-52.
• Hardy, S., Duncan, C., Masek, J., and Brown, D., 1998, "Minimum work, fault activity, and the growth of critical wedges in fold and thrust belts", Basin Research, 10, 365-373.
• Duncan, C.C., Klein, A.J., Masek, J.G., and Isacks, B.L., 1998, "Late Pleistocene and modern glaciations in central Nepal from digital elevation data and satellite imagery", Quaternary Research, 49, 241-254.
• Masek, J.G. and Duncan, C.C., 1998, "Minimum-work mountain building", Journal of Geophysical Research, 103, 907-917.
• Haselton, K. and Duncan, C.C., 1997, "Case study of a November 1995 Himalayas-Tibetan Plateau snowstorm", Proceedings of the EARSeL Workshop: Remote Sensing of Land Ice and Snow, 1, 45-52.
• Burbank, D.W., Leland, J., Fielding, E.J., Anderson, R.S., Brozovic, N., Reid, M.R., and Duncan, C.C., 1996, "Bedrock incision, rock uplift, and threshold hillslopes in the northwestern Himalayas", Nature, 379, 505-510.
• Duncan, C.C. and Turcotte, D.L., 1994, "On the breakup and coalescense of continents", Geology, 22, 103-106.
• Fielding, E.J., Isacks, B.L., Barazangi, M., Duncan, C.C., 1994, How flat is Tibet?, Geology, 22:163-7.

Other Information:

• Curriculum Vitae
• Previous Work

Last updated 05-Mar-2005