Physical Geography and Geomorphology

at the University of Kentucky

Digital shaded relief map of Kentucky
 
 

The Department
 
 

The Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky includes 20 full-time faculty at the Lexington campus, with additional part-time, adjunct, and affiliated geographers. Long recognized as one of the premier human geography programs in the nation, the department recently made a strategic decision to develop a physical geography program of comparable quality. Three faculty positions, laboratory facilities, and other resources have been devoted to that effort.
 
 

In the tradition of Geography coursework growing out of Geology programs in the U.S., the first geography courses (physiography) appeared in the official UK Catalogue in 1923. Two years later, courses on Economic Geography and Conservation of Natural Resources were added, followed by an introductory two-semester course titled Elements of Geography. By the mid-1930s several different academic departments at the University offered geography courses. During this same era, Kentucky's widely varied physical environment attracted geographers in training at established out-of-state graduate programs. The University of Michigan Geology-Geography program conducted annual summer field camps at Mill Springs on the Cumberland River's south bank in Wayne County. Students and faculty in those seminars, and others that conducted field work in Kentucky, included Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, William Morris Davis, Ellen Churchill Semple, Carl O. Sauer, Darrell H. Davis, Preston James, C. Warren Thornthwaite, and many others. World War II fostered a rapidly escalating demand for geographic information and problem solving techniques. In 1944, the University authorized the founding of a new Department of Geography within the College of Arts and Sciences.
 
 

In 1999 geography was designated an RCTF (Research Challenge Trust Fund) program as part of a state effort to identify and enhance the state's top research and graduate programs. Adding a physical geography research and graduate study element to the department's programswas a strategic decision designed to both make use of RCTF resources and achieve the lofty goals of the RCTF program.
 
 
 

The University
 
 

The University of Kentucky is a land-grant university and the flagship of the university system of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The university is in Lexington, a city of about 240,000 that lies about90 minutes from both Cincinnati and Louisville. U.K. has about 24,000 students. In addition to geography, Kentucky has doctoral programs in soil science, geology, biology, and many other fields related to physical geography.
 

What We Do
 
 

The physical geography program at the graduate level emphasizes geomorphology. Active research programs at the moment encompass fluvial geomorphology, pedology, development and applications of complex systems theory in the geosciences, and quantitative spatial analysis of biophysical phenomena. This list will be expanded as two additional faculty members are added in the near future.
 
 

UK's geography program is committed, and well-positioned, to exploring overarching issues of common interest in human and physica lgeography, and in social and geosciences. These are expressed in the geography research clusters representing subgroups of faculty who share interests in these common themes. Several clusters are specifically designed to take advantage of existing programmatic strengths to promote logical interactions of physical geography and other geographic research interests. These include quantitative spatial analysis, landscape interpretation, and environmental studies. There is also an evolving cluster focusing on historical and spatial contingency.
 
 

The University of Kentucky is situated in the inner bluegrass region of the state, in the midst of one of the best-developed and best known karst landscapes in the world. Close by is the world's longest cave (Mammoth Cave) and the famous sinkhole plain. A short distance awayin eastern Kentucky are the Appalachian Mountains. The interpretation of Appalachian topography has played and continues to play a pivotal role in the development of theories of geomorphology and landscape evolution. Some of the highly-dissected eastern Kentucky landscapes are prototypes of fluvially-dissected terrain and have been analyzed as such. In western Kentucky, in the upper Mississippi embayment, lies the spectacular alluvial valley of the lower Mississippi River and associated loess deposits. The Ohio River comprises the northern border of the state, and the Kentucky River gorge lies just south of Lexington. On a north-south axis, Lexington lies just south of the southern limit of Pleistocene glaciation, providing excellent access to glaciated and unglaciated landscapes and the transition between them.
 
 

The superb opportunities for landscape studies in Kentucky are reflected in the fact that the first academic field camps in both geography and geology were established in Kentucky, by Carl Sauer and the University of Michigan, and Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and Harvard University.
 
 

The Tobacco Road Research Team?
 
 

The UK Geography Department is home to one of two main chapters of the Tobacco Road Research Team. This group is a real, but loosely-organized and semi-serious, organization. The TRRT was founded in 1990 by Dr. B.D. Mann in eastern North Carolina. The mission of the TRRT was, and remains to this day, unclear but does involve conducting and promoting geomorphic, hydrologic, and pedologic research in tobacco-producing regions of the southeastern U.S. The association with tobacco is incidental; neither the research nor the TRRT is connected with the plant or its products other than occupying the same landscape.
 
 

Satellite view of the Kentucky River south of Lexington.

Graduate (600 and 700 level) and Graduate/Undergraduate(500 level) courses in physical geography and geographic techniques.
 
 

GEO 505 PRACTICUM IN CARTOGRAPHY. (3)
 

GEO 506 INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER CARTOGRAPHY. (3)
 

GEO 508 GEOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION OF AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY. (3)
 

GEO 509 APPLICATIONS OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS. (3)
 

GEO 530 BIOGEOGRAPHY AND CONSERVATION. (3)
 

GEO 550 SUSTAINABLE RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT.
 

GEO 565 TOPICS IN GEOGRAPHY: Earth Surface Processes and Landforms.(3)
 

GEO 600 ANALYTICAL METHODS IN GEOGRAPHY. (3)
 

GEO 655 SPECIAL STUDY OF SYSTEMATIC GEOGRAPHY: Earth Systems. (3)
 

GEO 700 ADVANCED ANALYTICAL METHODS IN GEOGRAPHY. (3)
 

GEO 705 ADVANCED GEOGRAPHIC METHODS: Physical Geography.

GEO 706 ADVANCED FIELD STUDIES: Soils, Regoliths, and Weathering Profiles

GEO 706 ADVANCED FIELD STUDIES: Fluvial Geomorphology
 

GEO 708 GIS RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES. (3)
 

GEO 710 RESEARCH METHODS AND METHODOLOGY IN GEOGRAPHY. (3)
 

GEO 718 TOPICAL SEMINAR IN GEOGRAPHY OF ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES. (3)
 

GEO 7XX TOPICAL SEMINAR IN PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY (course proposal under review).

Note: GEO 565, 655, 705, 706, and 718 may be taught with other subtitles.

Bay Phillips in Fayette County, Kentucky: It's never too early to become a geomorphologist!