Professor Edward A. Keller has begun a weekly column in the Santa Barbara News Press on the natural history of Santa Barbara. His introductory column came out June 16 and grabbed readers’ attention with its opening paragraph: “A thousand years ago, the equivalent volume of a million truckloads of boulders roared down Rattlesnake Canyon. The churning wall of fast moving boulders changed the look of the landscape of Santa Barbara from Rocky Nook Park west to State Street. A repeat of that event would destroy hundreds of homes and take hundreds of lives. We need to learn more about hazardous natural processes so that we might be better prepared for them and minimize potential adverse consequences. The ultimate goal is to live with and sustain our environment for what it is, a gift from our geologic heritage.”
Keller concluded his first column by promising: “In the coming weeks, we will explore the natural history of many locations, including The Sana Ynez Mountains, Mission Ridge, Mission Canyon, Rattlesnake Creek, Rocky Nook Park, Skofield Park, Santa Barbara Harbor, Painted Cave, Shoreline Park, Burton Mound, Arroyo Burro Beach, Las Positas Canyon, Hope Ranch, Carpinteria Bluffs, Rincon Point, La Conchita, Goleta Beach, UCSB, IV, and Elwood Mesa. We will also visit our natural hazards (especially earthquakes, tsunami, and landslides), implications of our Pleistocene heritage, resources, ecotourism, global warming, and sustainability. Let me know if you have a special question about our natural history and I will try to answer your inquiry. The source of information I will draw on is 30 years of research with my graduate students; a book, “Santa Barbara, Land of Dynamic Beauty,” that I am preparing as my personal gift to my community; and research completed by my colleagues at UCSB in the Department of Earth Science. I look forward to a lively discussion with the people of our community as we examine the wonder of our natural environment and our interaction with it.”
Dr. Keller is a Professor in the Department of Earth Science and the Department of Environmental Studies, as well as an Affiliated Faculty Member of the Department of Geography. His research efforts are divided into two areas of surface processes: 1) study of stream and river form and process and 2) studies of Quaternary stratigraphy and tectonics as they relate to earthquake hazard, landslides, active folding and mountain building. Ed was chair of the Environmental Studies and Hydrologic Sciences Programs from 1993 to 1997, received the Easterbrook Distinguished Scientist award from the Geological Society of America in 2004, and is the author/coauthor of the textbooks Environmental Geology, Introduction to Environmental Geology, Active Tectonics, Natural Hazards: Earth’s Processes as Hazards, Disasters, and Catastrophes, and (with Daniel B. Botkin) the new Sixth Edition of the award-winning Environmental Science: Earth as a Living Planet. The latter was elected the best textbook of 2004 by the Textbook and Academic Authors Association, and, for several years, the Environmental Literacy Council of Washington, D. C. listed it as the only acceptable environmental science textbook, based on a review of all such texts by a group of leading environmental scientists. Ed has worked on articles for SBNP for years in his “spare time.” As for his weekly column, “It will be a weekly column for many weeks – or as long as SBNP wants it and I can find time to write it.” If you want a job done, give it to a busy person!
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