VARIABILITY OF SEDIMENTARY SEQUENCE: NUMERICAL MODELING OF THE DEPOSITION-EROSION PROCESS

Abstract

Reinterpretation of field studies of bedload transport allowed some power-law relations to be obtained between different quantities. They were taken as a basis for the construction of a numerical model simulating bedload transport. The deposition-erosion process is presented as a sequence of individual events with intensities distributed according to a power law, characteristic of the regime of self-organized criticality. The model output (sedimentary cross sections with the model age of each of its elements) is rich in features resulting from the non-linearity of the underlying process. Analysis of the results of a series of numerical experiments provided an estimation of scale invariance of model sedimentary structures in space and time. These data are tested against observed regularities of spaciotemporal variability of real sedimentary sequences. Good agreement of these data makes it possible to extrapolate the scaling relations obtained to larger scales.