About

Ajay Limaye

Ajay Limaye leads the Landscape Evolution Group in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. The group investigates the processes that shape landscapes and sedimentary deposits from Earth’s seafloor to mountain canyons and the surface of Mars. Meet the research team, or see the Research and Press pages for more on our work.

Are you a prospective student or postdoctoral researcher? Check out current opportunities here.

Recent and upcoming talks

April 3, 2024: Ajay Limaye will present a seminar at the Geology Department at the College of William & Mary.

March 12, 2024: Undergraduate student Sam Verdi (Cornell U.; co-advised by Dr. Alex Hayes) will present a poster at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston with the latest on our work to interpret fluvial features on Saturn’s moon Titan. The poster focuses on how the “graininess” of landscapes in radar images impacts our ability to measure and interpret channel features.  

December 9-13, 2023: We presented three talks at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco, all on meandering rivers:

  • Collaborator Sam Kodama (UC-Santa Cruz) shared his work on the how the Red River in the upper Midwest US has adjusted its lateral migration in response to glacial isostatic uplift following the last ice age. Full details here.
  • Ph.D. candidate Yuan Li presented an invited talk, sharing new work that isolates how a key feedback timescale impacts forecasts for how meandering rivers migrate across landscapes. In the same session
  • Ajay Limaye shared the first results from our new take on an old problem: what is a meandering river bend? 

Blog

Research

Landscape dynamics shape the geologic record and alien environments from Mars to the ocean floor. What can landscapes tell us about the past and present of planets?

Landslides and hillslope ecology

 

Teaching

EVGE 5820: Geomorphology

What shapes Earth’s landscapes? This advanced undergraduate and graduate course tackles this question through lectures, laboratory assignments focusing on geospatial analysis and numerical modeling, and field trips to dynamic landscapes in Virginia. We dig into mechanistic models and quantitative observations to understand rivers, hillslopes, and whole landscapes. Students also design independent projects based on original topographic analysis. Next offering: Spring 2025.

ASTR 3880/3881, EVSC 4890/4891, EVGE 7559: Planetary Astronomy and Geology (with optional Laboratory)

In this advanced undergraduate/graduate class, we set out for the cosmos in search of what makes planets tick. Using a combination of astrophysics and geoscience, we seek out new worlds, consider life in the universe, peer into planetary interiors, and search foreign planetary surfaces for clues to their geologic history. Students in the laboratory section learn to work with planetary datasets for Mars, the Moon and beyond. This class is cross-listed in the Department of Astronomy and the Department of Environmental Sciences. Next offering: Spring 2024.

EVSC 2800/2801: Fundamentals of Geology (with optional Laboratory)

This is the introductory class for geosciences and a core class for all majors in Environmental Sciences. We study the composition, structure, and internal processes of earth; the organizing framework of plate tectonics; the perspective of deep time and geologic reasoning; and intersections between the solid Earth and society through natural resources and hazards. Next offering: Fall 2024 (and every semester with rotating instructors).

EVSC 4572 / EVGE 7542: Topics in Landscape Evolution

Next offering: Spring 2025 (topic TBD).

Spring 2023: The Appalachians. In this seminar, we will dive into classic papers on the formation and evolution of the Appalachian Mountains, topics that played a major role in framing early geomorphic theory in the US.

Spring 2021 (as EVSC 4559/7559): Geomorphology and Ecology of Debris Flows in Virginia. This seminar focused on the geomorphic and ecological legacy of debris flows in central Virginia. Discussions of scientific literature covered geologic context, the mechanics of debris flows, and historic debris flow events in the region; Hurricane Camille, which triggered intense flooding and debris flows in 1969; ecological responses to hillslope disturbance; and the human impacts of flood and debris flow hazards in the region.

Lab

We are building a new Landscape Evolution Laboratory, renovating the existing Environmental Sciences Shop Building at the University of Virginia. The centerpiece of the lab is a large basin — 7 meters long, 3 meters wide, and 1.5 meters deep — where we will evolve landscapes in miniature. In this setting we can precisely set fluxes of water and sediment , thereby studying controls on landscape evolution that are often difficult to isolate in nature. Design began in 2018, and our ongoing work is focused on establishing a fully automated suite of basin controls, including an instrument cart for high-precision topography measurements.

The lab is set in the woods behind UVA Grounds and is just down the road from the historic Leander McCormick Observatory,  which at the time of its construction in the 1880s was the largest telescope in the US. The 26-inch refractor, which was used to confirm the discovery of Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos, continues to inspire planetary exploration including for students in our class Planetary Astronomy and Geology.

Loading in the basin in the building in May 2021

Visitors will be able to walk up for a bird’s-eye view on our miniature landscapes.

Photos: Joe Gitz, UVA Facilities Management