I am a Lecturer at Stanford University who is curious about the intersections between submarine surface processes and climate change.
contact: stephencoledobbs@gmail.com (he/him)
Research
Assessing ocean-floor geohazard potential for proposed offshore wind farm site
Through an integration of bathymetric surveying, sediment core analysis, radiocarbon dating, and stable isotope analysis, we demonstrate that potentially hazardous sediment gravity flows are largely funneled away from a proposed wind farm site offshore central California through adjacent submarine channels. (Dobbs et al., 2023; Frontiers in Marine Science)
Quantifying submarine canyon morphology
Global analysis of publicly available bathymetry dataset (GMRT) which measured the quantitative differences between submarine canyons incised by sediment gravity flows and terrestrial catchments carved by fluvial processes (Dobbs et al., 2019; Geology)
Depositional controls on the source-to-sink pathway
An examination of progressive shifts in detrital zircon provenance from a Cretaceous continental slope through onshore system reveals that competition between transport processes across a marine sequence of rocks may affect the resulting provenance signals recorded in a stratigraphic succession. (Dobbs et al., 2022; Frontiers in Earth Science)
Teaching
In my role as a lecturer, I have taken the lead in teaching courses foundational to the undergraduate and graduate earth science curricula. At present, I am spearheading the revamp of several cornerstone courses for the Earth and Planetary Sciences major at Stanford University, including mineralogy, sedimentology and stratigraphy, igneous petrology, and field methods.
I've had the great opportunity to mentor several students since 2019 through Stanford's SURGE (Sustainability Undergraduate Research in Geoscience and Engineering Program) and SESUR (Sustainability and Earth Summer Undergraduate Research) programs. SURGE recruits undergraduates students at U.S. universities or colleges who by reason of culture, class, race, ethnicity, background, gender identity, life experience, and intersections thereof contribute to diversity to the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.