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Mats Olvmo

Senior Lecturer

Department of Earth Sciences
Mail
mats.olvmo@gvc.gu.se
Visiting address
Medicinaregatan 7 B
41390 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 460
40530 Göteborg

About Mats Olvmo

Education and teaching

I studied physical geography and hard rock geology at the University of Gothenburg and finished my degree (bachelor) in 1983. In 1989 I finished my PhD in physical geography at the same university. Professor Sten Rudberg was my supervisor. I held a research position from 1991 to 1993, after which I was employed as a university lecturer at the Department of Physical Geography. I was appointed associate professor in 2002.

I have taught physical geography, geography and earth science. My main teaching has been in geomorphology, but for the past 15 years or so, the teaching has mainly taken place in the bachelor's program in geography, which is given in collaboration with the human geography section at the Department of Economy and Society, GU. In this way, teaching has sometimes been broadened to include the combined subject of geography. Teaching in the field in the form of excursions and field courses has always been particularly close to my heart.

Research interests

I have a broad interest in geomorphology. My thesis (1989) dealt with glaciofluvial canyons in Sweden and tried to explain their distribution and mode of formation. During the 1990s my interest turned to palaeoweathering, including the characterization of saprolite remnants, the distribution of saprolite remnants and their relation to landforms and landform development, especially in southern Sweden.

In addition to that me and a couple of PhD students studied medium-scale bedrock forms and their relation to bedrock structure and lithology as the relation between glacial and non-glacial landforms and estimates of glacial erosion in basement rocks. The research focused on the development of small- and medium scale landforms in a long geological time perspective.

A hallmark of this research was detailed field work and mapping of medium scale landforms and the work focused on genetic classification of various bedrock forms, non-glacial as well as glacial. An important related research area is structural morphology in different scales, e. g. medium–scale glacial erosion forms, rock basins and fluvial patterns. Since the beginning of the 1990s my research in bedrock geomorhology has taken place in collaboration with professor Karna Lidmar-Bergström at the Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University.

Since 2016, my research interest has also come to include permafrost landforms in organic soils (palsas) in northernmost Sweden, and how the permafrost reacts to changes in the climate. The research takes place in collaboration with colleagues with different expertise at the Department of Geosciences at GU.