The EVoLvE project
The EVoLvE project - Modelling temporal evolution of volcano landscape through erosion – is a fundamental research project funded by FWO – Flanders for the period 2020-23, under the coordination of Prof. Matthieu Kervyn in the Physical Geography research group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The EVoLvE project aims at a better understanding the long term morphological evolution of volcanoes.
Volcanoes are highly dynamic geomorphological features which grow through eruption and erode rapidly. Although the fact that volcano landscapes change on short (1 – 10² yr) or long-term (105 - 106 yr) is evident, these processes and their controlling factors remains poorly constrained. This project aims to employ novel analogue and numerical models of landscape evolution with the fractal characterization of volcano shapes to develop a comprehensive model of long-term volcano morphology evolution.
The PhD project will first systematically characterize the morphometry and fractal dimension of composite volcanoes from selected tectonics arcs and relate these to their estimated erosion rates. Second, analogue experiments of volcano erosion will be systematically carried out and analysed to constrain the controls of volcano morphology, internal layering and tectonics on erosion rate and drainage pattern.