research

I am a geomorphologist studying how slopes fail and how landscapes evolve over time. My work combines field mapping, remote sensing (LiDAR, digital elevation models, InSAR), geochronology, and numerical modelling to understand landslides — especially very large ones — and what they reveal about the history of a landscape. Most of my fieldwork takes place in the Outer Western Carpathians, Patagonia, the Caucasus, and the polar regions.

A complete list of my work is on the publications page.

Giant landslides and rock avalanches

The eastern foreland of the former Patagonian Ice Sheet and the extra-Andean tableland host some of the largest terrestrial landslides on Earth. As part of Tomáš Pánek’s research team, I map these failures, reconstruct their timing, and ask why they cluster where they do — along the lower, arid, tectonically quiet eastern margin, where large volumes of weak sedimentary and volcanic rock remain. This work is supported by the Czech Science Foundation (grants GA19-16013S and GA23-07310S).

Deep-seated landslides in the flysch Carpathians

My home study area is the Moravskoslezské Beskydy and the wider Czech part of the Outer Western Carpathians, where more than 13,000 landslides have been mapped. I work on deep-seated landslides and gravitational slope deformations in flysch — from inventory mapping with LiDAR to the internal structure and behaviour of individual slopes.

Chronology, triggers, and hazard

When did slopes fail, how often, and what set them off? I date landslides and slope deformations using cosmogenic nuclides (¹⁰Be), dendrogeomorphology (tree-ring and exposed-root records), and lake and sedimentary archives — linking failures to deglaciation, climate, earthquakes, and, increasingly, extreme rainfall such as storm Boris (2024).

Landslides and active tectonics

Slope failures can record crustal deformation. In the Kura fold-and-thrust belt (Azerbaijan, Georgia) and the Greater Caucasus I study how growing folds and active, surface-breaking faults control where and when landslides occur.

Long-term landscape evolution

Beyond individual failures, I am interested in how mountain landscapes evolve over thousands to millions of years — glaciation and deglaciation, postglacial rebound, fluvial erosion, escarpment retreat, and the slow disintegration of volcanic tablelands. I also work on glacial geomorphology in the polar regions, including the Antarctic Peninsula (James Ross Island) and Svalbard.

Methods and tools

Across these themes I rely on geomorphological mapping, LiDAR and digital elevation models, geomorphometry, GIS, satellite radar interferometry (DInSAR), geochronology, and numerical run-out modelling.