"Dr Antoni Wojcik, with assistants of the Polish Geological Institute, will guide the group through beautiful and dangerous landslides in Carpathians and fore-Carpathians, Prof. Krzysztof Birkenmajer will be responsible for the Pieniny Mts in the Carpathians, and Prof. J.Lefeld for the Tatras of the Inner Carpathians, Dr Zbigniew Perski of the University of Silesia, with help from mining geologists, will lead the tour of mining areas where many roofs of underground coal mines have collapsed, Prof. Lech Wysokinski of the Building Technology Institute, with assistants, will be responsible for discussions about landslide control, mitigation and prevention along the Vistula escarpments in Warszawa and Plock City, and Prof. Wieslaw Subotowicz of the Gdansk University of Technology will direct our seaside excursion of landslide control, mitigation and recultivation. A comprehensive field guide/synthesis is already in preparation. Information leaflets and other relevant materials will be provided at all field stops Daily Scheduling: We will be quite liberal with the daily itinerary, enabling he/she-spouses to accompany she/he-spouses while visiting the more interesting cultural spots. However, we will also show some geological spots to all participants, including accompanying persons. We anticipate a full and exciting field excursion that will traverse all of Poland, highlighting many of the landslide hazards and at the same time display elements of Poland's rich cultural heritage."

The conference objectives to formulate agendas for training, research, technology transfer and technical assistance for preinvestment studies to reduce the vulnerability of trade corridors to socio-natural disasters. This information will be used in official sector and regional forums. The conferences hopes to attract participation from agriculture, energy, transportation, international development assistance, socio-natural hazard assessment, risk management, and international finance representing both the public and private sectors from the principle trading geographical areas: NAFTA, MERCOSUR, Andean Community (CAN) and Central America Common Market (MCCA). Specialists will discuss current vulnerability issues related to the infrastructure and production capability of the agriculture, energy, and transportation sectors in the context of trade corridors in the four trading geographical areas mentioned above.

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ILRG
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Thank you!

Abstract (from SCIENCE, Vol. 290, 20 October 2000):

Bill Cotton and your editor asked friends and colleagues to send personnel remembrances to express how Earl Brabb may have touch their lives and how his dedication has impacted their careers. Publishing all of these would choke the email system, but we have selected - almost at random - some examples that not only reflect Earl's enormous character, but also convey the importance of fellowship that is at the heart of the IRLG. These quotes - without attribution - follow:

"I still remember the warm acceptance you gave to me. You showed me around, discussed seriously problems and inspired me enormously. It is not exaggerated to say the meeting with you was one of the milestones in my professional career."

"If there is any overarching legacy you have left, Earl, it is I think the vision, the will, and the ability to "make things happen," good things, important things, and "outside the box" -- across bureaucratic lines. Not everyone has the temperament and the stomach for this. I am grateful

to have been on your watch to reap some of the many benefits. Finally, that genuine concern for your fellow man -- a trait all too rare these days -- will be sorely missed. Many would not guess that behind the ramrod-straight military carriage, the steel-blue eyes that look right through one like a laser beam, and the formal demeanor reminiscent of a Prussian Lehrer lurks one sweet guy and an enduringly beautiful human being."

"Your penchant for a good story with a human dimension helped orient our work towards the most humble of the vulnerable and their needs."

"I still remember how I used to write you from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay for day to day guidance in email about my research findings in GIS in landslide applications. You are the one who has clearly suggested me to classify the landslides distinctly into different categories and then work out the relationship with different themes like vegetation, lithology, slopes, etc. for the landslide hazard zonation map.Though you were remotely located, your prompt reply and suggestions were of real help to me. In fact I liked your open criticism about my work which helped me to do that in a right way without any biases."

"Earl, I have always admired your professionalism, dedication to geology, and in particular landslide studies that grew from the SF Bay Area to a worldwide interest in landslides. This practical work truly has directly benefited the public in providing useful landslide information to enable communities to seek informed decisions on hillside development."

"I still remember that you were the first person to approach me at the end of my presentation with words of encouragement and to dangle the carrot of a post-graduate summer school in Perugia. What a wonderful carrot the Perugia experience has turned out to be! Fausto Guzzetti has to be the most dynamic landslide researcher in Europe-a real bundle of energy and ideas."

"Had you not found landslides fascinating and not demanded that their associated risk be recognized, none of the world-wide exchange would have happened! I can speak for a lot of folks when I tell you that our lives are a lot richer because of you. You are a good friend and colleague. I consider myself one of the lucky ones to have had a chance to work with you and travel with you for so much of our collective careers."

"I remember the halcyon days of my youth as a candidate for a masters degree in geology at Stanford University when I and my partner in folly, Bob Esser, tackled the Reconnaissance Geology of the Woodside Quadrangle. We soon found ourselves in the preserve of the "GUARDIAN OF THE BUTANO SANDSTONE," one Earl Brabb. We struggled to place this unit somewhere in the geologic time scale between or among the Oligocene, Eocene, and Paleocene and overall to even find outcrops of this formation in the redwood canopied rivulets of the Santa Cruz Mountains and their northward extension (flashlights were generally necessary). Earl was a marvelous mentor and to my chagrin made us - think- and experience the geology of the region in the traditions of Hubert Schenk, Joe Graham, and that curator of lost mollusks (in the Purisima Formation) Myra Keen."

"I will forever be in debt to the mentoring I received from you over 20+ years, the good advice, and especially, the moral fortitude to fight the ignominy exhibited by certain members of our government, who never understood the benefits society reaps from studying natural hazards and processes. Earl, it is men like yourself who build great institutions; men who hang in there, who steadfastly serve for 30 or more years, who are willing to put their butts on the line, speak up, and risk corporate retaliation; all because they care about something bigger than themselves."

"Our first bona fide encounter involved a letter you sent forecasting the probable demise of either me or one of my field party as we set off for an exploration of the Kandik River, a region that you had so masterfully mapped years before. We survived the summer and it may well have been the result of the extra caution that your audacious letter instilled in us all."

"For all our common interests and times working on landslides, you know I most enjoyed our time at Colombella. I think everyone there came to know each other on a more personal level to add to our knowledge of each other as geological professionals. I can still remember your spirited rendition of "Call Me Doctor", a very amusing ditty, during an evening social time with the students."

"I imagine you feel like a mere mortal, but you certainly don't come across that way. There are so many ways in which you've touched my life (a typing error here would have had you touching my wife, which, I believe, is maybe the one thing you haven't done). I think we finished at Stanford at about the same time, and it's been dazzling watching your career from my cloistered, protected seat in the university."

"When I think of Earl I see a thinker, a traveler, an explorer ... someone who has perfected their ability to follow, what is perhaps a person's own greatest characteristic: Their Curiosity."

"Like many of your charges over the years, you took me under your wing to work with the Survey while a graduate student at Stanford. You provided more than financial support, however - you also provided invaluable guidance both by your words and your example. You showed me how geologic information should and could be successfully integrated into the planning process, a lesson I carry with me in both my research and my teaching to the present. The lessons you taught me were more important than most I learned in graduate school, and they have been passed on to my students and hopefully to their students as well."

"It has been my great pleasure to know you as a USGS colleague - one who worked unstintingly to try to maintain high morale and scientific excellence among the troops, despite the disruptive and demoralizing impacts of the 1995 reduction-in-force and the seemingly endless reorganizations since then. This period of time in the long history of the USGS is perhaps one of its darkest. Yet, by your leadership and personal example, you were a bright light during this dismal time and exhibited the stuff that helped us through an ongoing organizational crisis."

"You have the special qualities of leadership that allow me to remember you as exceptionally different among a long series of managers, most of whom struggle through their duties to people without style or consequence. As I reflect on our time together, your guidance allowed me to have a much better vision of the person I could be."

"The program of earthquake-related geologic hazard mapping in the Bay-Area, which you pioneered and led has been a major contribution to life and safety and society and has served as a model which could be followed in other areas. This was/is truly geology serving the public. On a broader scale, you have extended such attention to geologic hazards, landslides in particular, to an international effort and greatly helped form an international community of researchers and "doers"."

"What a career you have had! You have truly been Mr. Landslide in my book ever since your Landslide Workshop in Hawaii in 1978. I remember seeing a copy of your ambitious landslide itinerary when you were visiting government representatives throughout the United States. Some feat! We certainly had fun at the International Landslide Conferences and field trip excursions. Those trips were landmark events for me and many others."

"It was here that Earl's intellectual clarity, honesty, open-mindedness, and tenacity could be read by all; but what was not so readily apparent, was the endless and diverse work regimen that he carried on tirelessly at a frenetic pace; it derived from a work ethic that I think was a little threatening to those around him. His "retirement" is a mere formality."

The Storegga Slide was first studied in detail in the 1980's (Bugge, 1983). Three massive events totally 5,500 km_ have taken place on the mid-Norwegian continental slope in glacial to post glacial times (Jansen et al, 1987). One of these events was subsequently linked to an anomalous sediment deposit found on the eastern coast of Scotland and interpreted as a tsunami deposit (Dawson et al, 1988, Long et al 1989). Detailed studies of the Norwegian coastline has since identified similar and more extensive tsunami deposits dated to 7200 years BP (Bondevik et al 1997). Similar sites have been suggested in the Faroes and Iceland. More recent work has suggested that all three events occurred soon after each other with dates fitting the coastal evidence. These slides are currently being studied by an EU 5th framework programme COSTA - Continental Slope Stability and by industry as the recently discovered Ormen Lange gas field is located beneath the upper section of the slide. The associated tsunami was studied in the recently EU funded GITEC - Genesis and Impact of Tsunamis on European Coasts project and sediment transport was studied under the EU project ENAM - European North Atlantic Margin.

Various causes for the Storegga Slides have been suggested. Storegga is the site of high sedimentation rates during the late Cainozoic and was covered by vast thicknesses of glaciomarine sediments deposited on the North Sea Fan. It is also located where the Jan Mayen Fracture Zone intersects the continental margin. This general area has elevated levels of seismicity compared with other parts of the NW European margin. Some seismic profiles indicate a bottom simulating reflector (BSR) in close proximity to the slide plane suggesting that the possible presence of methane hydrates however boreholes drilled gave inconclusive results. Regional seismostratigraphic mapping suggests that there have been several very large slides in the vicinity of the North Sea Fan over the last million years (Evans et al 1996, King et al., 1996). The landslide's impact on Scotland was to cause a tsunami that struck the north and eastern coasts extending as far south as Lindesfarne in northern England. The waves would have extended several hundred metres inland of the former coastline with a run up of 1-2 min in open areas and much greater in enclosed bays or lochs (Long et al 1989). These figures are based on sediments laid down and therefore represent minimum run-up values. The sediments laid down by the tsunami waves comprise marine material but also contain debris from the coastal

marshes etc. Detailed examination of this debris indicates that the event happened in the autumn (Dawson and Smith, 2000). We have to presume the human impact was small due to the low population levels 7,200 years ago. However the deposit has been found at sites of early human habitation and we should presume that if it occurred today the consequences would be catastrophic. However the frequency of such events can be considered extremely low.

Although submarine landslides are unseen, they can be several orders of magnitude greater than that onshore and they may have coastal impacts in the form of tsunamis. Increasingly as we use the seafloor for hydrocarbon extraction and cable routes the economic impact of submarine landslides can be very great.

References

Bondevik, S., Svendsen, J.I., Johnsen, G., Mangerud, J. and Kaland, P.E. 1997 The Storegga tsunami along the Norwegian coast, its age and runup. Boreas, 26, 29-53

Bondevik, S., Svendsen, J.I., and Mangerud, J. 1997 Tsunami sedimentary facies deposited by the Storegga tsunami in shallow marine basins and coastal lakes, western Norway. Sedimentology, 44, 1115-1131.

Bugge, T. 1983. Submarine slides on the Norwegian continental margin, with special reference on the Storegga Slide. Institutt for kontinentalsokkelundersokelser, Publication No. 110. 152pp.

Dawson, A.G., Long, D. and Smith, D.E. 1988. The Storegga slide; evidence from eastern Scotland for a possible tsunami. Marine Geology, 82, 271-276.

Dawson, S. and Smith, D.E. 2000 The sedimentology of Middle Holocene tsunami facies in northern Sutherland, Scotland, UK. Marine Geology, 170, 69-79

Evans, D., King, E.L., Kenyon, N.H., Brett, C. and Wallis, D. 1996 Evidence for Long Term instability in the Storegga Slide region off western Norway. Marine Geology. 130

Jansen, E., Befring, S., Bugge, T., Eidvin, T., Holtedahl, H and Sejrup, H.P. 1987 Large submarine slides on the Norwegian continental margin: sediments, transport and timing. Marine Geology, 78, 77-107.

King, E.L., Sejrup, H.P., Haflidason, H., Elverhoi, A. and Aarseth, I. 1996. Quaternary seismic stratigraphy of the North sea Fan: glacially-fed gravity flow aprons, hemipelagic sediments, and large submarine slides. Marine Geology, 130, 293-315.

Long, D., Smith, D.E. and Dawson, A.G. 1989. A Holocene tsunami deposit in eastern Scotland. Journal of Quaternary Science. 4, 61-66.

Long, D., Dawson, A.G. and Smith, D.E. 1989. Tsunami risk in northwestern Europe: a Holocene example. Terra Nova, 1, 532-537.

"Recent trends in the U. S. suggest that more and more lands subject to landslides and earth failures are facing development. Whereas the land-use implications of other natural hazards, such as earthquakes and flooding, have received a fair amount of attention by government, landslide hazards have not. Complicating this problem, landslide-susceptible areas cannot be easily identified because they result from a combination of factors. Moreover, although a number of successful techniques for identifying and mitigating landslide hazards have been developed but the U. S. Geological survey (USGS) and Federal Management Agency, this information has not always reached planners and other public officials dealing with the hazard.

To address these issues, the research department of the American Planning Association (APA) has embarked on a program to consolidate solutions from multiple disciplines to aid local planning. To launch this program and determine its scope and needed support, APA hosted a landslide symposium earlier this year in which participants proposed several products: A guidebook for local planners that will bring together the science, the practice, and alternatives for dealing with landslide hazards; A training and workshop program for local planners and planning commission members; A series of GIS and computer-based mapping and analytical tools with relevant national-level remote sensing data from the USGS and other agencies; and A curriculum outline for use by planning schools to incorporate this topic into planning programs.

More fun with names with Owen Moore in Battersea, London, England:
Gone away
Owin' moore
Than he could pay.

Someone in Winslow, Maine didn't like Mr. Wood:
In Memory of Beza Wood
Departed this life
Nov. 2, 1837
Aged 45 yrs.
Here lies one Wood
Enclosed in wood
One Wood
Within another.
The outer wood
Is very good:
We cannot praise
The other.

On a grave from the 1880's in Nantucket, Massachusetts:
Under the sod and under the trees
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
He is not here, there's only the pod:
Pease shelled out and went to God.

The grave of Ellen Shannon in Girard, Pennsylvania is almost a consumer
tip:
Who was fatally burned
March 21, 1870
by the explosion of a lamp
filled with "R.E. Danforth's
Non-Explosive Burning Fluid"

In a cemetery in England:
Remember man, as you walk by,
As you are now, so once was I,
As I am now, so shall you be,
Remember this and follow me.

To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:

To follow you I'll not consent,
Until I know which way you went.