Dr Daniel Hobley
Lecturer and research fellow
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences
- Email:
- hobleyd@cardiff.ac.uk
- Telephone:
- +44 (0)29 2087 6213
- Location:
- 1.18A, Main Building, Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT
- Available for postgraduate supervision
I'm interested in the form and evolution of the Earth's land surface, the processes that create those changes, and how those changes interact with other aspects of the geosciences like climate, tectonics, sediment transport, hydrology, and stratigraphy.
By studying these things, in particular I want to understand exactly what information about the past is recorded in the Earth's landscapes, and how we can recover it.
I spend a lot of my time creating, developing, and working with numerical models of Earth surface processes. I'm always looking for new collaborators!
Interests
- Surface processes
- Geomorphology
- Sedimentology
- Stratigraphy
- Planetary surfaces
- Lecturer & Sêr Cymru COFUND fellow – School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University (2016-present)
- Research Associate – Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, USA (2013-2016)
- Research Associate – Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, USA (2011-2012)
- PhD – School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh (2010)
- BA MA MSci Natural Sciences (Earth Sciences) – University of Cambridge (2005)
Professional memberships
- American Geophysical Union
- European Geosciences Union
2018
- Singer, M., Michaelides, K. and Hobley, D. 2018. STORM 1.0: a simple, flexible, and parsimonious stochastic rainfall generator for simulating climate and climate change. Geoscientific Model Development 11, pp. 3713-3726. (10.5194/gmd-11-3713-2018)
- Tucker, G. E., McCoy, S. W. and Hobley, D. E. J. 2018. A lattice grain model of hillslope evolution. Earth Surface Dynamics 6, pp. 563-582. (10.5194/esurf-6-563-2018)
- Grindrod, P.et al. 2018. Stepped fans and facies-equivalent phyllosilicates in Coprates Catena, Mars. Icarus 307, pp. 260-280. (10.1016/j.icarus.2017.10.030)
2017
- Gray, H. J.et al. 2017. Off-fault deformation rate along the southern San Andreas Fault at Mecca Hills inferred from landscape modeling of curved drainages. Geology 46(1), pp. 59-62. (10.1130/G39820.1)
- Adams, J. M.et al. 2017. The Landlab v1.0 OverlandFlow component: a Python tool for computing shallow-water flow across watersheds. Geoscientific Model Development 10(4), pp. 1645-1663. (10.5194/gmd-2016-277)
- Hobley, D.et al. 2017. Creative computing with Landlab: an open-source toolkit for building, coupling, and exploring two-dimensional numerical models of Earth-surface dynamics. Earth Surface Dynamics 5, pp. 21-46. (10.5194/esurf-5-21-2017)
2016
- Rengers, F.et al. 2016. Model simulations of flood and debris flow timing in steep catchments after wildfire. Water Resources Research 52(8), pp. 6041-6061. (10.1002/2015WR018176)
- Tucker, G. E.et al. 2016. CellLab-CTS 2015: continuous-time stochastic cellular automaton modeling using Landlab. Geoscientific Model Development 9(2), pp. 823-839. (10.5194/gmd-9-823-2016)
- Sinclair, H.et al. 2016. Squeezing river catchments through tectonics: Shortening and erosion across the Indus Valley, NW Himalaya. Geological Society of America Bulletin (10.1130/B31435.1)
2015
- Mahon, R. C.et al. 2015. Quantifying the stratigraphic completeness of delta shoreline trajectories. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 120(5), pp. 799-817. (10.1002/2014JF003298)
2014
- Adams, J. M.et al. 2014. Landlab: sustainable software development in practice. Presented at: The Second Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE2), New Orleans, LA, USA, 16 November 2016The Second Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE2). New Orleans, LA, USA: figshare, (10.6084/m9.figshare.1097629.v6)
- Morgan, A. M.et al. 2014. Sedimentology and climatic environment of alluvial fans in the Martian Saheki Crater and a comparison with terrestrial fans in the Atacama Desert. Icarus 229, pp. 131-156. (10.1016/j.icarus.2013.11.007)
- Hobley, D. E. J., Howard, A. D. and Moore, J. M. 2014. Fresh shallow valleys in the Martian midlatitudes as features formed by meltwater flow beneath ice. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets 119(1), pp. 128-153. (10.1002/2013JE004396)
2012
- Hobley, D. E. J., Sinclair, H. D. and Mudd, S. M. 2012. Reconstruction of a major storm event from its geomorphic signature: The Ladakh floods, 6 August 2010. Geology 40(6), pp. 483-486. (10.1130/G32935.1)
2011
- Hobley, D. E. J.et al. 2011. Field calibration of sediment flux dependent river incision. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 116(F4), article number: F04017. (10.1029/2010JF001935)
- Attal, M.et al. 2011. Testing fluvial erosion models using the transient response of bedrock rivers to tectonic forcing in the Apennines, Italy. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 116(F2), article number: F02005. (10.1029/2010JF001875)
2010
- Hobley, D. E. J., Sinclair, H. D. and Cowie, P. A. 2010. Processes, rates, and time scales of fluvial response in an ancient postglacial landscape of the northwest Indian Himalaya. Geological Society of America Bulletin 122(9-10), pp. 1569-1584. (10.1130/B30048.1)
- Hobley, D. 2010. Dynamics of long term fluvial response in postglacial catchments of the Ladakh Batholith, Northwest Indian Himalaya. PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh.
At present, I teach on the second year course Hydrology and Geomorphology of Catchments.
In 2018/19, I will begin teaching Process Geomorphology to the second year Environmental Geographers.
I also supervise undergraduate dissertations in the areas of hydrology, geomorphology, and Earth surface processes.
I’m interested in the processes that shape the surface of the Earth, and in the archives they leave in the geological record. In particular, I work on understanding what information about past environments is captured and can be reconstructed, and what is lost. I’ve worked on many different surface processes, including rivers, hillslopes, floods, glacial & icy landscapes, sediment fans, and river deltas, and also have research interests on the other worlds of our solar system.
I use a lot of numerical modelling in my work, and am a key developer of Landlab, a Python-based, open-source software toolkit for modelling Earth surface processes: http://landlab.github.io.
I am interested in supervising PhD students in the areas of:
- Landscape response to climato-tectonic changes, and the surface archive of these changes;
- Fluvial and hillslope erosion processes and their interaction with fluvial sediment dynamics;
- Development of numerical models of Earth surface processes;
- Application of geomorphic transport laws to exotic environments elsewhere in the solar system;
- Any other interesting geomorphologic problem! Get in touch if you have an interesting idea and would like to pursue it with me.
Past projects
- Co-supervisor (50%) of Oliver Francis, looking at the effects of large earthquakes on landsliding and debris flow dynamics and hazards, and the role of earthquakes in the building of mountain topography.
