Hard Problems in Soft Earth Geophysics

Coordinators: Sujit Datta, Doug Jerolmack, and Vashan Wright

We live on a soft matter landscape. Earth materials such as soil, mud, ice and rocks exist in a fuzzy state between solid and fluid, depending on the timescales considered. Observed soft Earth behaviors such as glassy dynamics, strain localization, the encoding of memory in microstructure, active matter, and complex yielding are familiar themes in soft matter physics. However the mixtures, excitations, geometries and scales associated with soft Earth problems present novel challenges. Recent research has shown how frontiers in geophysics are also frontiers in soft matter physics and how combining these fields may lead to advances and insights in both. This conference aims to bring together researchers from these relevant primary fields. Rather than focus on solved problems, we will encourage participants to present open questions and challenges that will encourage new collaborations and novel approaches. We invite researchers covering all relevant areas: from theory and simulation of creep and yielding in amorphous materials, to experiments revealing novel multi-scale dynamics of earth (or earth-inspired) materials, to geophysical field observations that demand new–or at least non-traditional–theoretical and experimental approaches. Problems related to landslides, earthquakes, erosion, glaciers, and novel or exotic transport phenomena of earth materials are welcome.


2026

Tuesday, Jan 06, 2026

  • 08:50AM Fracture in soft earth materials Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 08:50AM Lars Bildsten (KITP) Welcome
    • 09:00AM David Weitz (Harvard) Lab-scale models for hydro-fracture
    • 09:45AM Jill Marshall (Portland State) Are some break-ups harder than others? Pondering the state of 'crackiness', wind,-forest structure, and soft-earth mechanics over time
  • 10:30AM MORNING BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 11:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 11:00AM John Kolinski (EPFL) Poroelastic polymer materials as proxy for geomechanics in cracks, the crust and ice
    • 11:45AM Yue (Olivia) Meng (Purdue) From Fracture to Flow: How Calving Ice Sheets Drive Mélange Behavior and Fjord Ocean Dynamics
  • 12:30PM LUNCH BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 02:00PM Earthquakes and friction Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 02:00PM Ahmed Elbanna (Univ. of Illinois) A call for fault sleuths: can we separate fluid effects from fault zone damage in seismic observations?
    • 02:45PM Mahesh Bandi (OIST) The many inter-percolating challenges of frictional granular mechanics
  • 03:30PM AFTERNOON BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 04:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 04:00PM Itai Einav (U. Sydney) From soil geotechnology to the hydrodynamic genesis of geophysical friction
    • 04:45PM Behrooz Ferdowsi (U. Houston) Yielding, Flow, and Healing in Slightly Wet Granular Matter: Humidity-Induced Capillary Cohesion and Its Role in Debris Flows, Landslides, and Post-Fire Hazards
  • 05:30PM SHUTTLE TO BWSCI Gurley Courtyard

     

2026

Monday, Jan 05, 2026

No talks scheduled.

2026

Tuesday, Jan 06, 2026

  • 08:50AM Fracture in soft earth materials Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 08:50AM Lars Bildsten (KITP) Welcome
    • 09:00AM David Weitz (Harvard) Lab-scale models for hydro-fracture
    • 09:45AM Jill Marshall (Portland State) Are some break-ups harder than others? Pondering the state of 'crackiness', wind,-forest structure, and soft-earth mechanics over time
  • 10:30AM MORNING BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 11:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 11:00AM John Kolinski (EPFL) Poroelastic polymer materials as proxy for geomechanics in cracks, the crust and ice
    • 11:45AM Yue (Olivia) Meng (Purdue) From Fracture to Flow: How Calving Ice Sheets Drive Mélange Behavior and Fjord Ocean Dynamics
  • 12:30PM LUNCH BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 02:00PM Earthquakes and friction Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 02:00PM Ahmed Elbanna (Univ. of Illinois) A call for fault sleuths: can we separate fluid effects from fault zone damage in seismic observations?
    • 02:45PM Mahesh Bandi (OIST) The many inter-percolating challenges of frictional granular mechanics
  • 03:30PM AFTERNOON BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 04:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 04:00PM Itai Einav (U. Sydney) From soil geotechnology to the hydrodynamic genesis of geophysical friction
    • 04:45PM Behrooz Ferdowsi (U. Houston) Yielding, Flow, and Healing in Slightly Wet Granular Matter: Humidity-Induced Capillary Cohesion and Its Role in Debris Flows, Landslides, and Post-Fire Hazards
  • 05:30PM SHUTTLE TO BWSCI Gurley Courtyard

     

2026

Wednesday, Jan 07, 2026

  • 09:00AM Icy, confined, and rare Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 09:00AM Ching Yao Lai (Stanford) TBA
    • 09:45AM Justin Burton (Emory) A dynamical model for the rheology of polycrystalline glacial ice
  • 10:30AM MORNING BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 11:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 11:00AM Amir Pahlavan (Yale) Chemical Gradients as Hidden Drivers in Soft Earth Materials
    • 11:45AM Rachel Glade (Rochester) The Probabilistic Physics of Sediment Transport: From Rarefied Bedload to Dense Force Chain Networks
  • 12:30PM LUNCH BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 02:00PM Patterns and instabilities Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 02:00PM Irmgard Bischofberger (MIT) Fractured Flows: Bubbles in Dense Suspensions
    • 02:45PM Ousmane Kodio (UCSB) TBA
  • 03:30PM AFTERNOON BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 04:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 04:00PM Willian Assis (Minnesota) How microbes shape landscapes: from biosignatures to bedform transitions and acoustic signals
    • 04:45PM David Meer (Emory) Protean droplets in microfluidic porous media
  • 05:30PM RECEPTION Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 06:00PM SPECIAL EVENTS DINNER Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 07:30PM SHUTTLE TO BWSCI Gurley Courtyard

     

2026

Thursday, Jan 08, 2026

  • 09:00AM Creep, yield and failure Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 09:00AM Ezequiel Ferrero (CAB-CNEA) Soils as yield-stress materials? Athermal creep facilitated by cyclic perturbations
    • 09:45AM Cacey Bester (Swarthmore) Sand’s Approach to Yield: How Granular Materials Creep and Fail
  • 10:30AM MORNING BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 11:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 11:00AM Karen Daniels (NC State) Granular flow and rigidity: from the lab to the solar system
    • 11:45AM Paulo Arratia (Univ. of Penn) Caught between a Solid and a Fluid: Understanding the Flow of Muddy Materials
  • 12:30PM LUNCH BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 02:00PM Material properties, memory and flow Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 02:00PM Shravan Pradeep (Univ. of Penn) Challenges in engineering programmable matter from earth-mediated materials
    • 02:45PM Emanuela Del Gado (Georgetown) Memory of gelation and flow
  • 03:30PM AFTERNOON BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 04:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 04:00PM Katherine Barnhart (USGS) Forecasting the motion of landslides as a unifying challenge
  • 05:30PM RECEPTION Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 06:00PM SPECIAL EVENTS DINNER Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 07:30PM SHUTTLE TO BWSCI Gurley Courtyard

     

2026

Friday, Jan 09, 2026

  • 09:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 09:00AM Alban Sauret (Maryland) How to make a mudslide?: Open questions
    • 09:45AM Tejas S Murthy (IISc) Sticky sand - looking at cohesive granular materials at multiple length scales
  • 10:30AM MORNING BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 11:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     

    • 11:00AM Yoav Lahini (Tel Aviv Univ.) TBA
  • 12:30PM LUNCH BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     

  • 02:00PM CONFERENCE END - SHUTTLE TO BWSCI *Also available to SB Airport and SB Airbus, Goleta location. (See Registration Desk BEFORE FRIDAY to sign up.) Gurley Courtyard

     

2026

Saturday, Jan 10, 2026

No talks scheduled.

2026

Sunday, Jan 11, 2026

No talks scheduled.