Morelia Urlaub
Prof. Dr. Morelia Urlaub is group leader and PI (principal investigator) of the ERC Starting Grant PRE-COLLAPSE and the Helmholtz Young Investigator Group ‘Do volcanoes collapse retrogressively?’. She is a partner in the Helmholtz Innovation Pool project CASCO - Risk workflow for cascading and compounding hazards in coastal urban areas.
Morelia Urlaub is Junior Professor for Marine Geomechanics at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and CAU Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel.
Morelia is a marine geoscientist, particularly interested in how the seafloor changes over different time scales; from minutes to thousands of years. She studies the remnants of submarine mass movements at the seafloor as well as active seafloor deformation using a variety of different methods. Her aim is to gain a better understanding of how these potentially dangerous events initiate so that in the future monitoring of precursory signals becomes possible.
Morelia is a marine geoscientist with a BSc in Geosciences and MSc in Marine Geosciences from the University of Bremen. She completed her PhD at the University of Southampton in 2013. Morelia joined the Marine Geodynamics Research Division at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in 2013.
Research Interests
Marine geohazards
Submarine landslides and slope stability
Volcano flank collapses
Seafloor deformation monitoring
Numerical modelling
Fluid flow in continental slopes
Contact:
RD4 Dynamics of the Ocean Floor - Marine Geodynamics
phone: +49 431 600-2638
email: murlaub@geomar.de
Room: 8c-205
GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel
Wischhofstr. 1-3
24148 Kiel
Germany
CV
Morelia Urlaub
Academic Background
01/2013 Ph.D. in Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, UK
04/2009 M.Sc. “Marine Geosciences”, University of Bremen, Germany
07/2006 B.Sc. “Geosciences”, University of Bremen, Germany
Research Experience
06/2022 - present Junior Professor for Marine Geomechanics at GEOMAR and CAU Kiel
02/2021 – present Junior research group leader at GEOMAR Kiel
06/2013 – 01/2020 Research scientist at GEOMAR Kiel
01/2013 - 04/2013 Postdoc at National Oceanography Centre Southampton
10/2009 - 12/2012 Ph.D. student at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton
04/2007 - 09/2009 Research assistant Marine Technology-Sensors Group (University of Bremen)
Ongoing Projects as PI
10/2021 – 09/2026 Do Volcanoes Collapse Retrogressively? – Helmholtz Young Investigator Group / Helmholtz Association; 1,500,000 €
02/2021 – 01/2026 PRE-COLLAPSE: Slow sliding of volcanic flanks as PREcursor to catastrophic COLLAPSE – ERC Starting Grant; 1,500,000 €
03/2023 bis 02/2025 REET: REconstructing VOLcanic erUptions and Tsunamis Of Krakatau VolcaNo; R/V SONNE Expedition 299/2
Awards and Prizes
04/2021 15th C.F. Gauss Lecture of the German Geophysical Society (DGG) at EGU 2021 (online)
12/2014 Professor-Ludwig-Weickmann Prize for outstanding theses in the natural sciences, awarded by the Professor-Ludwig-Weickmann Foundation, University of Leipzig
Research Cruises (past five years)
02/2024 RV meteor M198 chief scientist
08-09/2023 RV Sonne SO299/2 Chief scientist
11-12/2021 RV Meteor M178 (Co-Chief Scientist): Servicing of seafloor geodetic network offshore Mount Etna, Sicily
08-10/2020 RV Sonne SO277 (Co-Chief Scientist): Deployment of seafloor geodetic network, hydroacoustic mapping, Ionian Sea/ nearshore Malta
01-02/2020 RV Alkor AL532 (Chief Scientist): AUV mapping of an active submarine landslide, Ionian Sea
08/2018 RV PELAGIA 64PE443 (Co-Chief Scientist): Recovery of five seafloor geodetic stations, Ionian Sea
Publications
Most important journal articles
Urlaub, M., Petersen, F., Gross, F., Bonforte, A., Puglisi, G., Guglielmino, F., Krastel, S., Lange, D., Kopp, H. (2018), Gravitational collapse of Mount Etna’s south-eastern flank, Science Advances, 4 (10)
Urlaub, M., Geersen, J., Krastel, S. and Schwenk, T. (2018), Diatom ooze: Crucial for the generation of submarine mega-slides? Geology, 46 (4), 331-334
Urlaub, M., Talling, P.J., Zervos, A., Masson, D.G. (2015), What causes large submarine landslides on low gradient (<2°) continental slopes with little sediment input? Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 120 (10), 6722-6739
Talling, P.J., Clare, M., Urlaub, M., Pope, E., Hunt, J.E., Watt, S.F.L. (2014), Large submarine landslides on continental slopes: Geohazards, methane release, and climate change. Oceanography, 27(2), 32-45
Urlaub, M., Talling, P.J., Masson, D.G. (2013), Timing and frequency of large submarine landslides: Implications for understanding triggers and future geohazard. Quaternary Science Reviews, 72, 63-82
Most important book chapter
Kaminski, P., Urlaub, M., Grabe, J., Berndt, C.: Geomechanical behaviour of gassy soils and implications for submarine slope stability (2020). Geological Society, London, Special Publications 500