Biography
Jim Best’s current research concerns the mechanics of sediment transport, the investigation of modern sedimentary environments, and the interpretation of ancient alluvium. Current areas of ongoing research include: interactions between turbulent flows and sediment movement, turbulence modulation in sedimentological flows, bedform dynamics, braided river dynamics and deposits, the morphodynamics of river channel confluences, the sedimentology of large rivers, the application of multibeam imaging within sedimentary environments, basin evolution, paleoenvironments, and sedimentology of the Western Irish Namurian Basin.
Education
- Ph.D., Birkbeck College, University of London
- B.S., University of Leeds
Courses Taught
- GEOG/ESE 222 - Big Rivers of the World
- GEOG/GEOL 575 - Alluvial Boundary Layer Dynamics
- GEOL 440: Sedimentology and Stratigraphy
- GEOL 415/515: The Geology of County Clare, Western Ireland: sedimentology, paleoecology and evolution of a sedimentary basin
- GEOL 593: Advanced Clastic Sedimentology
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Geography and Geographic Information Science
Professor, Mechanical Science and Engineering
Recent Publications
Best, J., & Darby, S. E. (2020). The Pace of Human-Induced Change in Large Rivers: Stresses, Resilience, and Vulnerability to Extreme Events. One Earth, 2(6), 510-514. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.05.021
Blois, G., Bristow, N. R., Kim, T., Best, J. L., & Christensen, K. T. (2020). Novel Environment Enables PIV Measurements of Turbulent Flow around and within Complex Topographies. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 146(5), [1733]. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0001733
Bristow, N. R., Blois, G., Best, J. L., & Christensen, K. T. (2020). Secondary Flows and Vortex Structure Associated With Isolated and Interacting Barchan Dunes. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 125(2), [e2019JF005257]. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JF005257
Cisneros, J., Best, J., van Dijk, T., Almeida, R. P. D., Amsler, M., Boldt, J., Freitas, B., Galeazzi, C., Huizinga, R., Ianniruberto, M., Ma, H., Nittrouer, J. A., Oberg, K., Orfeo, O., Parsons, D., Szupiany, R., Wang, P., & Zhang, Y. (2020). Dunes in the world’s big rivers are characterized by low-angle lee-side slopes and a complex shape. Nature Geoscience, 13(2), 156-162. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0511-7
Darby, S. E., Langdon, P. G., Best, J. L., Leyland, J., Hackney, C. R., Marti, M., Morgan, P. R., Ben, S., Aalto, R., Parsons, D. R., Nicholas, A. P., & Leng, M. J. (2020). Drainage and erosion of Cambodia's great lake in the middle-late Holocene: The combined role of climatic drying, base-level fall and river capture. Quaternary Science Reviews, 236, [106265]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106265
