Topography of large-scale watersheds: fractal texture and global drift. Application to the Mississippi basin

Details Topography of large-scale watersheds: fractal texture and global drift. Application to the Mississippi basin Topography of large-scale watersheds: fractal texture and global drift. Application to the Mississippi basin

Sep 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996e%26psl.143..257d&link_type=abstract

Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 143, Issue 1-4, p. 257-267.

Computer Science

4

Scientific paper

The topography of large-scale hydrographic basins is assumed to involve two components: a meso-scale isotropic fractal pattern and a polarized large-scale trend which is oriented by large-scale tectonics and supports the global drainage. An algorithm is developed which splits up topography into a fractional Brownian function and a trend gradient C. Focusing on the large scales a logarithmic profile and a rectangular planform are detected through either the relationship between the gradient C and the normalized elevation E or by the basin hypsometric curve and the inertia tensor of the basin area. This is successfully applied to the digital terrain model of eight large-scale sub-basins of the Mississippi. The profile belonging to the basin main valley is also logarithmic but its slope is twice smaller than that of the mean profile, denoting a trend surface with converging slopes towards the mid-valley. The scaling transition is investigated through angular distributions. This is synthesized by a ternary diagram involving the following poles according to increasing scales: a pure isotropic fractal F, a transient off-centred fractal O and a tilted tectonic plane T. The fractal parameters are the intensity δ at scale s = 1 km and the Hurst exponent H. Over a basin area H is constant while δ is proportional to the trend slope C whatever the elevatioE . This implies a constant horizontal scale ξf for each basin, around 30 km separating the fractal-dominated topography from the trend-dominated topography.

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