Geomorphology in context: Dispatches from the field Carol P. Harden ⁎ Department of Geography, 304 Burchfiel Geography Building, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-0925, USA abstract article info Article history: Accepted 28 March 2013 Available online 5 April 2013 Keywords: Field research Geomorphology Spatial context Site selection biases Field experience Field research enables a researcher to view geomorphic systems in broader contexts than those envisioned while at a desk and can yield unanticipated insights that change the course of an investigation or affect the interpretation of results. Geomorphological field research often produces ‘aha!’ moments, epiphanies that enhance understanding and lead toward more complete explanation of the processes and landforms under study. This paper uses examples from ‘aha!’ moments in the field to demonstrate the importance of field observation as a way of gaining information about the broader contexts of research sites, especially in process geomorphology. Spatial contexts include the scales of processes and features, linkages between a study site and its surroundings, and information observed in the field about other processes, anthropogenic activities, or unexpected factors that might affect a study. Temporal contexts, not as evident in the field, place a research site in a longer term history of changes and adjustments. Finally, exploring an abstract set of mental contexts reveals reasons that expectations differ from the realities encountered in the field—constraints and biases that a researcher may not have noted—and the possibility that the unexpected can potentially advance geomorphic research. Time spent in the field complements scientific reductionism and provides opportunities to appreciate the richness and complexity of Earth surface systems. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Planning for new research typically occurs indoors, away from the geomorphic system or site to be studied, and necessarily involves reduc- ing complex systems to key factors or indicators to design manageable research projects. The reductionist nature of science and resultant need to isolate individual factors can mean that, even in the field, a researcher might focus on equipment or on a small area without examining its surroundings. Such focus can cause the researcher to overlook important characteristics of the landscape, even to the point of missing essential elements of a system under study. The combined effects of scientific reductionism and limited first-hand experience have the potential to create eye-opening moments—epiphanies—and foster new insights for observant field researchers. The purposes of this paper are to promote the importance of understanding the broader contexts of a geomorphic research site and to call attention to types of eye-opening realizations of those contexts that can occur in the field. Revealed contexts are divided into three types: spatial, temporal, and mental. When this paper was presented at the Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium, some observations were introduced as ‘dispatches from the field’ to reflect their serendipity and anecdotal nature. Table 1 provides examples of those ‘dispatches.’ 2. Spatial/biophysical contexts 2.1. Scale A common cause of an ‘aha’ moment in the field, for researchers as well as for students, comes with the experience of seeing a particular feature first-hand and finding that its size is much different from that imagined in the mind's eye. The size of glacial features, for exam- ple, is often underestimated when based on textbook knowledge. A researcher familiar with small, Little Ice Age terminal moraines of mountain glaciers (perhaps only 1–2 m in height) may feel quite stunned to recognize that an entire tree-covered ridge, such as that flanking Moraine Park in Rocky Mountain National Park, is a moraine. Likewise, the size of major eskers and large glacial erratics conveys a sense of the magnitude of glacial action likely to exceed that imagined by most readers. The Madison boulder in New Hampshire, considered to be the largest glacial erratic in North America, exemplifies such a larger-than-expected feature (NH State Parks, 2012). At the other extreme, someone accustomed to looking at river terraces in mountain regions might be quite surprised at the submeter subtlety of difference in terrace heights in the lower Mississippi River valley. Developing a Geomorphology 200 (2013) 34–41 ⁎ Tel.: +1 865 974 8357; fax; +1 865 974 6025. E-mail address: charden@utk.edu. 0169-555X/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2013.03.025 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Geomorphology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geomorph