Professor Stephen Wells, the president of Desert Research Institute, Reno, USA, was invited by Professor Xiaoping Yang to have visited INSTITUTE OF GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (IGGCAS) recently. He gave two distinguished lectures on November 15, 2010 : a) “Late Quaternary Geology, Sedimentology, and Paleohydrology of Pluvial Lake Mojave, Southern California, USA”, and b) ”Role of Desert Pavements & Soil Development on Hydrology, Ecology & Long-term Landscape Evolution in Arid Regions”. His presentations were chaired by Professor Xiaoping Yang.

In his first talk, Professor Wells presented his outstanding research on geomorphology, sedimentology, and palaeoclimatology of the lake basins in the Mojave Desert of USA. In his second presentation, Professor Wells introduced a new model, namely “born on the surface”, for the formation of desert pavements based on his comprehensive and innovative investigations in deserts mainly in western USA.

During and after the presentations the audience had asked Professor Wells questions and had in-depth discussions with him. Not only researchers and graduate students from IGGCAS, but those from neighboring institutions, even visiting scientists from Australia, New Zealand and Germany came and listened to the two lectures. Just as Professor Jule Xiao, director of the CAS Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, commented at the end, we are very grateful to Professor Wells for sharing with us his important and innovative research.

Professor Wells giving lectures at IGGAS