Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
We live on a soft matter landscape. Earth materials such as soil, mud, ice and rocks exist in a fuzzy state between solid and fluid, depending on the timescales considered. Observed soft Earth behaviors such as glassy dynamics, strain localization, the encoding of memory in microstructure, active matter, and complex yielding are familiar themes in soft matter physics. However the mixtures, excitations, geometries and scales associated with soft Earth problems present novel challenges. Recent research has shown how frontiers in geophysics are also frontiers in soft matter physics and how combining these fields may lead to advances and insights in both. This conference aims to bring together researchers from these relevant primary fields. Rather than focus on solved problems, we will encourage participants to present open questions and challenges that will encourage new collaborations and novel approaches. We invite researchers covering all relevant areas: from theory and simulation of creep and yielding in amorphous materials, to experiments revealing novel multi-scale dynamics of earth (or earth-inspired) materials, to geophysical field observations that demand new–or at least non-traditional–theoretical and experimental approaches. Problems related to landslides, earthquakes, erosion, glaciers, and novel or exotic transport phenomena of earth materials are welcome.
Coordinators: Sujit Datta, Doug Jerolmack, and Vashan Wright
More information: https://www.kitp.ucsb.edu/activities/softearth-c26
Recordings and slide decks: https://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/softearth-c26
__________________________________
Connect with KITP everywhere:
🔗 https://www.kitp.ucsb.edu
𝕏 https://x.com/@kitp_ucsb
🦋 https://kitp-ucsb.bsky.social
▶ youtube.com/@KITP_UCSB
💻 linkedin.com/company/kavli-institute-for-theoretical-physics
__________________________________
The position of the KITP is that ownership and copyright of all online material -- slides, text, audio, video, and podcasts -- belongs to the author. KITP is providing dissemination for these materials but does not claim ownership. Any person citing these materials for scholarly purposes should provide an appropriate scholarly reference.
We live on a soft matter landscape. Earth materials such as soil, mud, ice and rocks exist in a fuzzy state between solid and fluid, depending on the timescales considered. Observed soft Earth behaviors such as glassy dynamics, strain localization, the encoding of memory in microstructure, active matter, and complex yielding are familiar themes in soft matter physics. However the mixtures, excitations, geometries and scales associated with soft Earth problems present novel challenges. Recent research has shown how frontiers in geophysics are also frontiers in soft matter physics and how combining these fields may lead to advances and insights in both. This conference aims to bring together researchers from these relevant primary fields. Rather than focus on solved problems, we will encourage participants to present open questions and challenges that will encourage new collaborations and novel approaches. We invite researchers covering all relevant areas: from theory and simulation of creep and yielding in amorphous materials, to experiments revealing novel multi-scale dynamics of earth (or earth-inspired) materials, to geophysical field observations that demand new–or at least non-traditional–theoretical and experimental approaches. Problems related to landslides, earthquakes, erosion, glaciers, and novel or exotic transport phenomena of earth materials are welcome.
Coordinators: Sujit Datta, Doug Jerolmack, and Vashan Wright
More information: https://www.kitp.ucsb.edu/activities/softearth-c26
Recordings and slide decks: https://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/softearth-c26
__________________________________
Connect with KITP everywhere:
🔗 https://www.kitp.ucsb.edu
𝕏 https://x.com/@kitp_ucsb
🦋 https://kitp-ucsb.bsky.social
▶ youtube.com/@KITP_UCSB
💻 linkedin.com/company/kavli-institute-for-theoretical-physics
__________________________________
The position of the KITP is that ownership and copyright of all online material -- slides, text, audio, video, and podcasts -- belongs to the author. KITP is providing dissemination for these materials but does not claim ownership. Any person citing these materials for scholarly purposes should provide an appropriate scholarly reference.
