Karoline Messenzehl

GM Geomorphology

The 2015 Outstanding Student Poster (OSP) Award is awarded to Karoline Messenzehl for the poster/PICO entitled:

Multidisciplinary investigations on coupled rockwall-talus-systems (Turtmann valley, Swiss Alps) (Messenzehl, K.; Draebing, D.)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

I am PhD student at the Department of Geography at the University of Bonn (Germany), supervised by Prof. Richard Dikau and I am working on the PhD project “Rock slope instability in alpine geomorphic systems, Switzerland”. By looking at both the source (rockwall) and the sink (talus slope), I aim to understand the major controls on rock slope weathering and erosion through rockfalls in mountain catchments affected by glacier retreat and permafrost degradation. Based on a multi-scale approach, my PhD study involves both interdisciplinary field surveys at the scale of single landforms as well as regional-scale modelling analyses. The poster awarded at the EGU 2015 presented a local field study on two coupled rockwall-talus systems (Turtmann Valley, Swiss Alps), where key drivers of bedrock erosion and talus slope deposition are interpreted in the light of geophysical data, the specific rock mechanical characteristics and the landforms’ material properties.