Alison Duvall

Headshot of Alison Duvall.

Alison Duvall

Research areas

Education: Ph.D. University of Michigan, 2011 M.S. University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003 B.S. summa cum laude, Virginia Tech, 2000

Graduate Students:
Seth Williams, Tamara Aranguiz, Paul Morgan

Interests: Tectonics, Geomorphology, Landscape Evolution, and Applied Geosciences

Alison Duvall is a geologist who studies how mountains are built and how the landscape responds to these processes. More specifically, she looks at how plate tectonics, erosion, and climate all work together to shape the Earth’s surface across both space and time. In addition to mountains, she investigates what happens when two blocks of Earth’s crust slide past each other (called strike-slip faulting), changing hill slopes, river channels, and other features of the landscape. Because they are often continuous for long distances, strike-slip faults are especially prone to large earthquakes, but measuring their activity is hard. Duvall hopes to develop new ways of both recognizing and analyzing fault activity directly from surface processes.

Selected publications

  • Zhao, X., Zhang, H., Hetzel, R., Kirby, E., Duvall, A., Whipple, K., Xiong, J., Li, Y., Pang, J., Wang, Y., Wang, P., Liu, K., Ma, P., Zhang, B., Li, X., Zhang, J., and Zhang, P., 2021, Existence of a continental-scale river system in eastern Tibet during the late Cretaceous-early Palaeogene. Nature Communications
  • Schoettle-Greene, P., Duvall, A.R., Blythe, A., Morley, E., Matthews, W., and LaHusen, S.R., 2020, Minor upper plate exhumation driven by subduction initiation offshore Haida Gwaii, Canada. Geology, 48(9), 908-912. https://doi.org/10.1130/G47364.1
  • LaHusen, S.R., Duvall, A.R., Booth, A.M., Struble, W., Grant, A., Wartman, J., Roering, J., and Montgomery, D.R., 2020, Storms trigger more deep-seated landslides than Cascadia earthquakes in the Oregon Coast Range, USA. Science Advances, 6(38), DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba6790
  • Duvall, A.R., Harbert, S.A., Upton, P., Tucker, G.E., Flowers, R.M., and Collett, C.M., 2020, River patterns reveal landscape evolution at the edge of subduction, Marlborough Fault System, New Zealand. Earth Surface, v.8, 177-194. https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-8- 177-2020
  • Collett, C.M., Duvall, A.R., Flowers, B., Tucker, G.E., and Upton, P., 2019, The timing and style of oblique deformation within New Zealand’s Kaikōura Ranges and Marlborough Fault System, based on low-temperature thermochronology. Tectonics, v.38, 23 pp. http://doi.org/10.1029/2018TC005268.
  • Harbert, S.A., Duvall, A.R., and Tucker, G.E., 2018, The role of near-fault relief elements in creating and maintaining a strike-slip landscape. Geophysical Research Letters, 45, 10 pp. http://doi:10.1029/2018GL080045.
  • Perkins, J. P., J. J. Roering, W. J. Burns, W. Struble, B. A. Black, K. M. Schmidt, A. Duvall, and N. Calhoun, 2018, Hunting for landslides from Cascadia’s great earthquakes. Eos, 99, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EO103689.
  • Schanz, S.A., Montgomery, D.R., Collins, B. D., and Duvall, A.R., 2018, Multiple paths to straths: a review and reassessment of terrace generation. Geomorphology, v. 312, 11 pp. http://doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2018.03.028.
  • Gray, H.J., Shobe, C.M., Hobley, D.E.J., Tucker, G.E., Duvall, A.R., Harbert, S.A., and Owen, L.A., 2017, Off-fault deformation rate along the southern San Andreas fault at Mecca Hills, southern California, inferred from landscape modeling of curved drainages. Geology, v. 46, 4 pp. http://doi:10.1130/G39820.1.
  • Booth, A.M., LaHusen, S.R., Duvall, A.R., and Montgomery, D.R., 2017, Holocene history of deep-seated landsliding in the North Fork Stillaguamish River valley from surface roughness analysis, radiocarbon dating, and numerical landscape evolution modeling. Journal of Geophysical Research, Earth Surface, v. 122, 17 pp. doi:10.1002/2016JF003934.