2nd Annual SLATE Workshop

@ EAWAG, Lake Lucerne, Switzerland | 9-16/9/2018

This year’s annual SLATE workshop took the participants to Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, where the ESRs were introduced to a variety of techniques to map and sample subaqueous landslides. The workshop took off with a 2-day technical workshop on Lake Lucerne and in the laboratories of EAWAG Kastanienbaum to study various aspects of on- and offshore mass movements, earthquake-triggered landslides, mass-movement triggered tsunami and their deposits:

  • Half-day research cruises in 3 groups on two research vessels
  • Acquisition of single channel 3.5 kHz reflection seismic data
  • Recovery of short gravity cores
  • Cone penetration testing
  • Data and sample processing and analyses in the lab

The technical workshop was followed by an expert course on “Presentation Skills for Scientists” by Samuel Lagier (SamSpeaksScience.com), a member of the Catalyst group (thecatalyst.ch), before the ESRs worked on short group presentations to present their results of the technical workshop at the end of the week. A second expert course by Robbie l’Anson Price (Catalyst group) tackled the important topic of science communication and public outreach projects.

As usual, ESR students presented and discussed their preliminary research in talks and during a poster session and held their semi-annual Personal Training and Career Development Committee (PDPC) meetings with their main and co-supervisors.

Public lectures were given by Alexander Puzrin from the ETH Zurich and Flavio Ansemetti (University of Bern), who provided valuable background information on shear band propagation within submarine landslides as well as the state of tsunami research on Swiss lakes, respectively.

BLOG SERIES – What happens behind the curtain at an annual SLATE workshop?

A blog series on selected aspects of this workshop will provide more comprehensive information on the experiences of our ESR students. The following list will be continuously updated with each new blog post:


Lake Lucerne Workshop -
why do we actually meet?

ESR 5, ESR 8, News | 25/09/18

Lake Lucerne Field Trip -
Let's get muddy!

ESR 1, ESR 13, ESR 14, News | 09/10/18

Lake Lucerne Workshop -
expert courses

Courses, ESR 11, ESR 12, ESR 2, News | 16/10/18
Public lectures
  • Wednesday, 12 September, 6 pm
    “Evolution of submarine landslides: unifying shear band propagation approach
    Alexander Puzrin (ETH Zurich)
  • Friday, 14 September, 4:15 pm
    “Causes, processes, and impacts of tsunamis on Swiss lakes: an interdisciplinary approach
    Flavio Anselmetti (University of Bern)
Expert courses
  • Presentation skills for scientists
    Samuel Lagier (The Catalyst)
  • Science Communication
    Robbie l’Anson Price (The Catalyst)
Technical workshop
  • 2-day workshop on Lake Lucerne and in the laboratories of EAWAG
    Michael Strasser (Uni Innsbruck)
    Jasper Moernaut (Uni Innsbruck)
    Achim Kopf (Uni Bremen)
    Jannis Kuhlmann (Uni Bremen)
    Katrin Huhn (Uni Bremen)
    Steffen Hammerschmidt (Uni Bremen)
Impressions