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Coupled length scales in eroding landscapes

Author(s)
Chan, Kelvin Ka Wing, 1974-
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.
Advisor
Daniel H. Rothman.
Terms of use
M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
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Abstract
We propose a method to study natural topography by means of local transform. A nonlinear local transform Alc[h(x)] of the elevation field h(x) is used to determine a director field of anisotropy a(x). The director field is directly related to local small-scale channel-like features. From study of the correlations of these with large-scale structure of drainage basins, characteristic coupling length scales are found which indicate an important breaking of scale invariance. We also show that these length scales are related to the average sizes of the individual drainage basins. Our study demonstrates one way in which landscape patterns of unknown origin may be quantitatively analyzed to determine the kind of mechanisms that have eroded them.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, 1999.
 
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-76).
 
Date issued
1999
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/57667
Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

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