This project has two main aims : (i) to unravel the late Quaternary depositional history of the piedmont zone and (ii) to derive a physical model of fan development for the western portion of the coastal plain. This project will utilise the diagnostic spectral response of iron species in the visible to VNIR waverange combined with mineral magnetic and extractable (Fed) analysis of the fan surfaces. This will allow the identification and differentiation of the different fan segments on the basis of the relative proportions and concentrations of the different iron species in the soils which is a function of the length of time the soils have been exposed to weathering processes. Acquisition of LiDAR would allow a detailed DEM of the alluvial fan and the adjacent fault zone to be derived. Available topographic maps are not accurate enough to enable the contact zones between the different fan segments and the uplifted fault terraces to be resolved. A high resolution DEM would allow accurate calculations of fan segment volumes and uplift rates to be derived and subsequently enable a model of fan development on the piedmont to be derived.