Wyrwoll Karlheinz

Karl-Heinz Wyrwoll

School of Earth and Geographical Sciences
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley WA 6009
Australia

Phone: +61 8 6488 2714
Fax: +61 8 6488 1054
Email: wyrwoll@segs.uwa.edu.au

PhD University of London, 1981 (Geomorphology-Quaternary Geology)
MSc McGill University, Montreal, 1971 (Physical Geography)
BSc University College London, 1969 (Physical Geography-Geology)

Research Interests

  • Geomorphology-Process Sedimentology: mechanics of geomorphological processes; sedimentology of alluvial and eolian depositional environments; geomechanics of rock and soil materials and hillslope mass failures; geomorphology and morphotectonics of active orogens.
  • Quaternary Geology: alluvial chronology, sedimentology and paleohydrology; coral reef geology and geomorphological evolution; sea level history; paleoseismicity and neotectonics of western Australia; sedimentology of foreland basins of the northern margins of the Tibetan Plateau.
  • Paleoclimatology: climatic history and mechanisms of climatic change; dynamic climatology of Quaternary climate events with an emphasis on Atmosphere Ocean General Circulation Model (AOGCM) approaches.

Current Projects

Geomorphology
  • Controls of accelerated erosion and drainage basin and channel response.
  • Predicting wind erosion and eolian landscape responses to future climate projections in southwestern Australia.
  • Uplift history of the Liupan Shan, northern China.
Quaternary Geology
  • Late Quaternary paleohydrology and paleoclimates of the semi-arid regions of southwestern Australia: reconstruction of lacustrine and alluvial events.
  • Late Cenozoic geology, sealevel events, paleoceanography and neotectonics of the western margin of Australia.
  • Paleoseismic studies in Western Australia: implications for earthquake hazard assessment.
  • Stratigraphy and optical luminescence dating of eolian sediments in southwestern Australia.
Paleoclimatology
  • Paleoclimate modeling of Australian - East Asian monsoon interactions.
  • Global tectonic and climate interactions.
  • Global scale dust modeling at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
  • Uranium-Thorium dating and stable isotope composition of speleothems for paleoclimate reconstruction of the north west Australian monsoon.

Selected Recent Publications

Wyrwoll, K.-H., Greenstein, B.J. and Kendrick, G.W. 2007: The palaeoceonography of the Leeuwin Current. Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, Special Issue. (In press).

Clark, D., Dentith, M., Wyrwoll, K.-H., Lu, Y., Dent, V. and Featherstone, W. 2007: Hyden Fault Scarp, Western Australia: palaeoseismic evidence for repeated Quaternary displacement in an intracratonic setting. Australian Journal of Earth Science. (in press).

Wyrwoll, K.-H., Liu, Z., Chen, G., Kutzbach, J.E. and Liu, X. 2007: Sensitivity of the Australian summer monsoon to tilt and precession forcing. Quaternary Science Reviews, doi:10.101016/j.quascirev.2007.06.026.

Estrada, B., Clark, D., Wyrwoll, K.-H. and Dentith, M. 2006: Paleoseismic investigation of a recently identified Quaternary fault in Western Australia: the Dumbleyung Fault. Proceedings of the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society, Canberra, ACT, 24-26 November: 189-194.

Wyrwoll, K.-H., Zhu, Z.R., Collins, L.B. and Hatcher, B.G. 2006: Origin of blue hole structures in coral reefs: the Houtman Abrolhos, Western Australia. Journal of Coastal Research, 22 (1) 202-208.

Chen, J., Wyrwoll, K.-H., Lu, Y., Krapez, B., Wan, J. and Liu, J. 2006: Magnetochronology of the Yumen Conglomerates and thrusting in the northern Qilianshan. Quaternary Sciences, 26 (1): 20-31.

Sandercock, P.J. and Wyrwoll, K.-H. 2005: The historical and paleoflood record of Katherine River, Northern Australia: evaluating the likelihood of extreme discharge events in the context of the 1998 flood. Hydrological Processes, 19 (20): 4107-4120.

Wang, P., Lu, Y., Chen, J. and Wyrwoll, K.-H., 2004: The response of the development features of the Shule River alluvial fan to tectonic activity. Quaternary Sciences, 24 (1): 74-81.

Wyrwoll, K.-H. and Valdes, P. 2003: Insolation forcing of the Australian monsoon as controls of Pleistocene mega-lake events. Geophysical Research Letters, 30 (24): 2279-2283.

Wyrwoll, K.-H. 2003: An engineering geomorphology of the wider Perth region, Western Australia. In: Baynes, F. (ed.) The Engineering Geology of Perth (Part 1). Special Publication of the Australian Geomechanics Society, Australian Geomechanics, 38: 17-32.

Collins, L.B., Zhu, Z.R., Wyrwoll, K.-H. and Eisenhauer, A. 2003: Late Quaternary structure and development of the northern Ningaloo Reef, Australia. Sedimentary Geology, Special Volume: Late Quaternary Reef Development, 159: 81-94.

Thomas, G.A., Allen, D.G., Wyrwoll, K.-H., Cooling, D. and Glenister, D. 2002: Capacity of clay seals to retain residue leachate. Proceedings of the 6th International Alumina Quality Workshop. Brisbane, Queensland. 8-13 September, 2002: p. 233-239.

Bowler, J.M., Wyrwoll, K.-H. and Lu, Y. 2001: Variations of the northwest Australian summer monsoon over the last circa 300 000 years: the paleohydrological record of the Lake Gregory Lakes System. Quaternary International, 83-85: 63-80.

Wyrwoll, K.-H. and Miller, G. 2001: Initiation of the Australian summer monsoon 14,000 years ago. Quaternary International, 83-85: 119-128.

George, A.D., Marshallsea, S.J., Wyrwoll, K.-H., Chen, J. and Lu, Y. 2001: Miocene cooling in the northern Qilian Shan, northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, revealed by apatite fission-track and vitrinite-reflectance analysis. Geology, 29: 939-942.

Wyrwoll, K.-H., Dong, B. and Valdes, P. 2000: On the position of the southern hemisphere westerlies at the Last Glacial Maximum: an outline of AGCM simulation results and evaluation of their implication. Quaternary Science Reviews, 19: 881-898.

Kuhnert, H., Plaetzold, J., Wyrwoll, K.-H. and Wefner, G. 2000: Monitoring climate variability over the past 116 years in coral stable isotopes from Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia. International Journal of Earth Science, 88: 725-732.