Five Recent Papers

Robert M. Thorson standing in front of Episcopal Church in Stockbridge, MA. Photo by Kristine Thorson.

Listed below are recent reviewed papers that provide examples of Thorson's scholarly work.

Enclylopedia of New England

2005, Geology, Yale University Press, Geology, p. 567-569

Alaskan Glacial Geology

2004 Kaufman, D.S. and Manley, W.F., 2004, Pleistocene maximum and Late Wisconsin glacier extents across Alaska, U.S.A., in Ehlers, J. and Gibbard, P.L., eds., Quaternary Glaciations-Extent and Chronology, Part II: North America. Developments in Quaternary Science Volume 2, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 9-27.

I was one of many contributing authors to this state wide map compilation and sysnthesis by Kaufman and Manely.

Bluff-top Archaeology

2003 Thorson, R. M., and Tryon, Christian A. Bluff top sand sheets in northeastern archaeoogy: A physical transport model and application to the Neville Site, Amoskeag Falls, New Hampshire. Pages 61-74 in Cremeens, D. L. and Hart, J.P. (Eds.), Geoarchaeology of Landscapes in the Glaciated Northeast. New York State Museum Bulletin 497.

This paper combines an the physics of local wind, processes of bluff erosion, and the intermittent accumulation of soil and wind-blown material in to a model of sediment transport that can be used to understand intermittent occupaton of archaeological sites and the resulting separation between archaeological components. We apply our approach to the type site for the Middle Archaic site in New England.

Voices of the New Republic

2003 Thorson, R. M. The Physical Environment of Connecticut Towns: Processes, Attitudes, and Perceptions Then and Now. Pages . 225-237 in Howard R. Lamar (Ed.) and Carolyn C. Cooper (Assoc. Ed.), Voices of the New Republic : Connecticut Towns 1800-1832 Volume II - What We Think. Memoirs of the COnecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Volume XXVII.

This edited volume won the 2004 Connecticut Book Award in the Nonfiction category. My essay interprets how Americans in the early republic viewed their landscape, with specific attention to geological observations made in the late-Colonial years and in the first decade of the 19th century. Though I cover specific sections on archaeology, agriculture terrain, transportation, hydrology, climatology, non-renewable resources, and remarkable occurences, the main point of the essay is that we have "traded data for detatchment," by which I mean that modern environmental management is data rich, but we are so far removed from the land that we may not understand it as well.

Glacial Tectonics

2000 - Thorson, R. M. Glacial tectonics: a deeper perspective. Quaternary Science Reviews: An International Journal 19: 1391-1398.

This review paper describes a mechanical stress model for how ice sheets influence crustal tectonics through the effects of flexure, loading, and traction (from horizontal isostatic flow). Particular attention is given to the role of pore pressure at different depths under transient conditions. I argue that the term "glaciotectonics" be restricted to the traditional use of the term for near-surface, deformation of unconsolidated sediments, and that the term glacial tectonics be used for crustal-scale effects.

El limite glacial en Sudamerica y su papel en Biogeografia

1999 - Thorson, R.M., 1999, El limite glacial en Sudamerica y su papel en Biogeografia; Observaciones de Darwin. Ciencia al Dia Internacional (a peer-reviewed internet journal) 4: Vol. 2, articulo #4. Dec. 1999.

This contribution to Darwin scholarship (published in Spanish with an abstract in English) argues that his crossing of the Cordilleran glacial limit on the island of Chiloe' (42-43 degrees south latitude) jarred his thinking about the role of time in biogeography, an experience that contributed to his later observations in the Galapagos in Ecuador. The ice limit coincides with the boundary between vast (and what he saw as monotonous) expanses of Notofagus forest to the south and the more species-rich, neotropical forests to the north.

Colonial Impacts to Wetlands in Lebanon, Connecticut

1998 - Thorson, Robert M., Andrew G. Harris, Sandra L. Harris, Robert Gradie III, and M.W. Lefor, 1998. Colonial Impacts to Wetlands in Lebanon, Connecticut, in Welby, C.W., Ed., Reviews in Engineering Geology; The Voice of Reason, the Voice of Warning: Boulder, CO., Geological Society of America, p. 23-42.

This invited review paper describes the intensive, multi-year, field investigations of how wetlands were impacted by European settlement in Susquetonscut Brook, a small upland watershed typical of colonial and early American farming communities. Quoting from the abstract "Freshwater wetlands throughout the area were strongly impacted by this discrete pulse of landscape disturbance, but the response of each wetland to local and upsream land use was site specific. The individualistic nature of wetland responses can be understood only by treating the drainage basin as a linked physical system that integrates geomorphic processes in a downstream direction."

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