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CORVALLIS - A group of disaster and natural hazards experts from around the world will speak at a seminar series called "Disturbance, Disaster and Cataclysm" during spring term at Oregon State University.

The series is sponsored by the OSU Department of Geosciences. Each lecture will begin at 4 p.m. in Gilfillan Auditorium of Wilkinson Hall on the OSU campus. All the presentations are free and open to the public.

The speakers and their topics include:

• April 1: "Volcanoes, Cities and Human Security," by Grant Heiken of the Los Alamos National Laboratory;

   

• April 10: "Controlling the Environment: From Marginal Science to Mainstream Research," by Kris Harper of the OSU Department of History;

   

• April 15: "Stream Basin Development, Tectonic Deformation Rates, and Seismic Hazard Implications for the Southeastern Los Angeles Basin," by Eldon Gath, of Earth Consultants International in Los Angeles;

   

• April 17: "Exotic Species, Human Caused Species Extinctions, and Biodiversity," by Peter White, professor in the Department of Biology at the University of North Carolina;

   

• April 22: "Disturbances in Regulated Rivers: The Role of Floods in Restoring the Colorado River System," by Jack Schmidt, associate professor of natural resources at Utah State University;

   

• April 24: "Posteruption-Suspended Sediment Transport: Decadal Scale Trends and Transport Hydrology at Mount St. Helens," by Jon Major, research scientist at the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory;

   

• April 29: "Caribbean Forests: Ruin and Recovery Following Hurricanes," by Ariel Lugo, director of the International Institute of Tropical Forestry in Puerto Rico;

   

• May 6: "Geospatial Information Management in a Hostile Environment," by Babs Buttenfield of the University of Colorado;

   

• May 15: "Millennial-scale variations in Vegetation, Fire, and Climate in the Seasonal Temperate Rain Forest of Western North America," by Colin Long of the University of Oregon;

   

• May 29: "Rivers of Fire and Ice: Observations on Catastrophic Fluvial Disturbances at Mount Pinatubo and Eastern Tibet," by Dave Montgomery, professor of Earth and space sciences at the University of Washington;

   

• June 3: "Geomorphology and American Dams: The Scientific, Social and Economic Context," by William Graf, professor in the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina;

   

• June 5: "Japanese Records of the 1700 Cascadia Tsunami," Brian Atwater, U.S. Geological Survey.