Author Description

About the Author Edward A. Keller Ed Keller is a professor, researcher, writer, and most importantly, mentor and teacher to undergraduate and graduate students. Currently, Dr. Keller's students are working on earthquake hazards, how waves of sediment move through a river system following disturbance, and geologic controld on habitat to endangered southern steelhead trout. He was born and raised in California (Bachelor's degree in Geology and Mathematics from California State University at Fresno, Master's degree in Geology from University of California at Davis), it was while pursuing his Ph.D. in Geology from Purdue University in 1973 that Ed wrote the first edition of "Environmental Geology," the text that became the foundation of the environmental geology curriculum. Ed joined the faculty of the University of California Santa Barbara in 1976 and has been there since, serving multiple times as the chair of both the Environmental Studies and Hydrologic Science programs. In that time he has been the author on over 100 articles, including seminal works on fluvial processes and tectonic geomorphology. Ed's academic honors include the Don J. Easterbrook Distinguished Scientist Award, Geological Society of America (2004), Quatercentenary Fellowship from Cambridge University, England (2000), two Outstanding Alumnus Awards from Purdue University (1994, 1996), A Distinguished Alumnus Award from California State University at Fresno (1998), the Outstanding Outreach Award from Southern California Earthquake Center (1999). Ed and his wife Valery, who brings clarity to his writing, love walks on the beach at sunset and when the night herons guard moonlight sand at Arrroyo Burro Beach in Santa Barbara. Robert H.Blodgett Bob Blodgett is Professor of Geology at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas, where he teaches natural hazards and disasters, environmental, physical, and historical geology, as well as environmental science, and manages the college's Edwards Aquif