An integral approach to bedrock river profile analysis
Name
PerronRoyden-ESPL-preprint.pdf
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1.45 MB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
abee121c2a8b1758491d901a3badcd19
Author(s)
Perron, J. Taylor
Royden, Leigh H
Date Issued
August 2012
Journal
Earth Surface Processes and Landforms
Publisher
Wiley Blackwell
Citation
Perron, J. Taylor, and Leigh Royden. “An Integral Approach to Bedrock River Profile Analysis.” Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (2012).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Bedrock river profiles are often interpreted with the aid of slope–area analysis, but noisy topographic data make such interpretations challenging. We present an alternative approach based on an integration of the steady-state form of the stream power equation. The main component of this approach is a transformation of the horizontal coordinate that converts a steady-state river profile into a straight line with a slope that is simply related to the ratio of the uplift rate to the erodibility. The transformed profiles, called chi plots, have other useful properties, including co-linearity of steady-state tributaries with their main stem and the ease of identifying transient erosional signals. We illustrate these applications with analyses of river profiles extracted from digital topographic datasets.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.3302
