Luna Leopold

Luna Leopold Luna Bergere Leopold (October 8, 1915 – February 23, 2006) was an American geomorphology geomorphologist, hydrology hydrologist, and president in 1972 of the Geological Society of America. Elected in 1967 a Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, he received the Cullum Geographical Medal (1968), the G. K. Warren Prize (1973), the Busk Medal (1983), the National Medal of Science (1991), the Robert E. Horton Medal (1992), the Penrose Medal (1994), and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science (2006; jointly with M. Gordon Wolman). Quotes When one observes the many and great changes that have occurred in some landscapes since the beginning of the Pleistocene, he is inclined to the belief that a longer period of time was involved than he had been led to believe. Death Valley is an example where lakes of great depth once existed in a locality that is now a true desert. Segments of giant fans, some faulted, have been built out on the dried-up lake basin. Some large boulders on the Alluvial fan fan surface are so deeply weathered that a hammer blow will reduce them to Grus (geology) grus.We are rapidly learning that certain Geomorphology geomorphic processes are much more rapid than we have been wont to believe. But only recently have geologists attempted to determine by actual measurement process rates formerly the subject of general reasoning or speculation. Such measurement programs have documented the fact that rates of landscape change are greater than had earlier been suspected. River channel change with time: an example: address as retiring president of the Geological Society of America, Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 1972 Geological Society of America Bulletin 84 6 1973 1845–1860 https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-abstract/84/6/1845/201368/River-Channel-Change-with-Time-An-ExampleAddress Over a period of ten years, simultaneous measurement of storm rainfall and resulting Urban runoff runoff during individual storms were made in small basins in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. By simple measurement, without any recording devices, data collected define a relation of basin lag time to drainage area. This lag time, expressed as time between center of mass of rainfall and center of mass of runoff, is a specific measure of some basin characteristics including the effect of urbanization.Using lag time relations, synthetic hydrography construction shows the effect of urbanization on peak discharge from a given storm. The method applied to one storm shows that urbanization increased the peak discharge by two fold. Catena 18 2 April 1991 157–171 Lag times for small drainage basins https://doi.org/10.1016/0341-8162(91)90014-O 10.1016/0341-8162(91)90014-O The excess of precipitation over Evapotranspiration evapo-transpiration loss to the atmosphere is a surprisingly small percentage of the average precipitation. The average amount of water that falls as precipitation over the United States annually is 30 inches. Of this total, 21 inches are returned to the atmosphere in the form of water vapor through the process of evaporation and transpiration from plants. The balance of 9 inches contributes to the maintenance of groundwater and the Streamflow flow of rivers. A View of the River Harvard University Press 1994 9780674937321 https://books.google.com/books?id=QWDQ7ezcjbcC&pg=PA2 2 (298 pages) Quotes about Luna Leopold The fate of rivers would evidently not be disregarded by Leopold’s watchful eye. In the late 1950s, he and W.B. Langbein initiated what came to be called the Vigil Network, consisting of sections in small Drainage basin river basins where natural changes would be recorded regularly. Some of these have been operating continuously for half a century, and similar schemes are in operation in Israel and Sweden. Just as productive were some of Leopold’s rafting expeditions down rivers for which he needed depth and velocity data. In 1965, he surveyed 450 km of the Colorado River Colorado in this manner (and again many years later with his distinguished collaborator, the physicist, soldier, and desert explorer Ralph Bagnold Ralph A. Bagnold). Besides feeding into the morphometric work, these investigations paved the way for a concerted attack on the problems of River engineering river control and Ecological restoration restoration, presaged in a joint study of flood control with T. Maddock Jr. in 1954 and developed with T. Dunne in 1978 and D.L. Rosgen in the 1980s. Claudio Vita-Finzi, Geological Society of America Memorials 35 May 2006 27–32 Memorial to Luna B. Leopold (1915–2006) https://www.riversofdata.org/cool_timeline/leopold-and-maddock-first-introduce-hydraulic-geometry/ See also Aldo Leopold (father of Luna Leopold) External links Category:1915 births Category:2006 deaths Category:Geologists from the United States Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:National Medal of Science laureates Category:People from Albuquerque Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty