Property:Extended movie description
From CSDMS
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100 years of permafrost warming in Alaska.
This movie uses climate model data and soil mappings as input. The movie only shows the evolution of the mean annual temperature at 1 m depth for each gridcell. A significant warming can be seen. +
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A close up of bed load transportation with a still camera frame.
50g/m/s 7.0mm d50
50g/m/s 0.20mm d50
Grain Size ratio = 35 +
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A debris flow occurring in California. +
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A helicopter flies over a landslide scar in Maierato, Southern Italy.
Most of the sliding happened on February 15th, 2010, but the area is notorious for landsliding and the hillslope was moving previously as well.
This area of Italy, Calabria, is known for its landslides. Heavy rains preceded the event and caused ~100 other smaller slides in the region. +
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A high speed movie illustrating the formation of cyclic steps in an experimental drainage basin subject to constant base level fall (done to model a constant uplift of the basin). +
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A major landslide in Japan takes out part of the highway 168. The first coverage shows the vegetation sliding by the camera. Helicopter footage shows the landslide scar in the perspective of the river valley. The comments associated with this film indicate that two typhoons preceded this events. +
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A series of landslides occurred in late April and May 2012 in the headwaters of the Seti River. These caused a landslide dam wall, which blocked the normal flow of river. Seti river means 'White River', because it normally has the typical milky color of rivers that drain a glaciated area. However, because the river was bloked it was unusually clear, untill May 5th. Early in the morning of May 5th, 2012 a large rockfall occurred high on the ridgeline of the Annapurna massive, the rock and debris came down with tremendous force. Along its steep course the rock melted snow and ice and picked up more debris. This debris and te floodwave hit the dammed up Seti River and caused the earlier landslide dam to abruptly break.
The video shows the slurry of water and sediment traveling through the Seti River valley. The initial pulse of debris and hyperconcentrated muddy water damaged many houses and probably 72 people were killed. This region is conducive for these natural hazards, the relief is extremely high and avalanches and rockfalls are common. The downstream rivers have eroded into lake bed sediments and thus can easily erode more. Furthermore the monsoonal climate of the region can trigger unstabilities due to high rain events. +
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A small plane is flying around the ash cloud of Eyjafjalljokull. This footage was recorded on April 22nd, 2010, a few days after the second phase of the eruption started. The second phase of the eruption was in the centre of Eyjafjallajokull glacier. Although it was cloudy flying towards the glacier close to the center of the eruption the air warms up so much that clouds evaporate and you will get a glimpse of the slope of the vulcano.
Interesting to note the visible soundwaves from the explosions in the final section of the film..somehow caught by the sun glinting off steam emitted as the volcano melts the surrounding ice cap. +
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A small river confluence in Illinois with an asymmetrical confluence and a concordant bed.
The different cross-sections in the example focus on mixing of rivers with different water temperatures (thermal mixing). The large-scale engulfing by the ML eddies promotes mixing. The large-scale oscillations of SOV cells play an important role in the mixing between the two streams. +
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Animation of coastal beach formation during summer season. This cycle would be typical for for example beaches in California. +
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Animation of waves affecting a beach profile during winter. This animation is typical for example for California. +
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April 2010, a jökulhlaup resulting from the volcanic eruption near
Eyjafjallajökull.
This movie shows how the generated meltwater and debris spills out of side-gullies and along the valley wall. When the flow reaches the local valley bottom, the sandur surface it fans out. The helicopter flies low over the flow in the sandur plain and one can see standing waves being generated by the shallow fast-moving water. This is an indication that large bedforms are actively formed and migrating over the bottom. It can also been seen that even over the floodplain the flow has erosive effect and incises an estimated > 1,5 m banks. +
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BFM TV, a french television network (http://www.bfmtv.com/), captured spectacular footage of bluff failure occurring in coastal France. BFM TV reported that ~30,000 tons of material was moved.
Also discussed at:
http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2013/07/23/rock-topple-france/
http://coastalcare.org/2013/07/normandy-cliff-collapses-onto-beach-at-st-jouin-bruneval/ +
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Barrier Islands migrate over the shelf in response to sea level changes. Here the sandy deposits that form the actual island, first prograde outward, during sea level fall and then retrograde when sea level is coming up again. +
Bed load transport due to moving water flowing over the bedload surface from multiple angles. All scenes are slowed down. The first is a mixture of 95% sand and 5% gravel. The second is a mixture of 80% sand and 20% gravel. The third is the same mixture. +
Bed load transportation with a moving camera frame.
50g/m/s 7.0mm d50
50g/m/s 0.20mm d50
Grain Size ratio = 35 +
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Bernhard Lehner (department of geography, at McGill University) and others worked for years together to establish a world database on reservoirs. Over 5000 reservoirs are included presently and presented over time in this visualization.
Data can be found at: http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/collection/grand-v1 +
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Bioturbation is the mixing of plant and other organic matter into soils and sediments by biotic activity. It is one of the fundamental processes in ecology, as it stimulates decomposition, creates habitats for other (micro)fauna and increases gas- and water flow through the soil.
This time lapse movie shows bioturbation by 3 earthworms species:
- Lumbricus terrestris (an ’anecic’ earthworm, feeding on leaves and living in deep vertical burrows; 2 individuals present)
- Lumbricus rubellus (an ’epigeic’ earthworm, feeding on leaves and living in shallow, non-permanent burrows; 2 individuals present)
- Aporrectodea caliginosa (an ‘endogeic’ earthworm, feeding on decomposed organic matter and living deeper in the soil; 3 individuals present).
Poplar leaves were applied on top of the soil as food for the earthworms. Different soil layers were simulated by mixing a topsoil (rich in organic matter) with quartz sand in various ratios.
The recording lasted 1 month.
This movie was made in collaboration with scientists from the Department of Soil Quality of Wageningen University, The Netherlands.
Soil screening: I.M. Lubbers & J.W. van Groenigen
Marie Curie Alumni: G.B. De Deyn
Microphonography: Urban Utan
Time lapse photography © Wim van Egmond - 2014
With the support of the Marie Curie Alumni Association +
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CHILD model simulation of a meandering river in its floodplain. The meander migrates through the floodplain, depositing channel sands in its bed.
Associated movies are shown here: https://csdms.colorado.edu/wiki/Model:CHILD +
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CU Science update featured a short movie on 'Sinking Deltas'.
There is a widespread need to assess the vulnerability of the world’s population living in low-lying deltas to flooding, whether from intense rainfall, rivers or from hurricane-induced storm surges. High-resolution NASA SRTM topography data and MODIS satellite data along with georeferenced historical map analysis allows quantification of the extent of low-lying delta areas and the role of humans in contributing to their vulnerability. Thirty-three major deltas collectively include ~26,008 km2 of area below local mean sea level and ~96,000 km2 of vulnerable area below 2 m a.s.l. This vulnerable area may increase 50% under projected 21st Century eustatic sea level rise. Analysis of river sediment load data and of topographical changes show that these densely populated, intensively farmed landforms, that often host key economic structures, have been destabilized by human-induced accelerated sediment compaction due to water, oil and gas mining, and by reductions of incoming sediment from upstream dams and reservoirs and floodplain engineering. +
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Credits to:<br>
Albert Kettner, CU - INSTAAR<br>
Greg Fiske, WHRC<br>
Bernhard Peucker-Ehrenbrink, WHOI<br>
The animation shows the size of river drainage basins, or watersheds, scaled to the mass of sediment transported by the rivers to the coastal oceans. The color code (upper right corner) corresponds to million tons (Mt) of sediment per week. The time bar on the bottom shows the progression throughout the year. The sun symbol on the map shows the movement of the high-point of the sun throughout the seasons as an alternative time marker. +
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Cuspate spits are here simulated with the Coastline Evolution Model (CEM) of Andrew Ashton.
Sediment transport occurs under the influence of longshore transport that is driven by wave action.
Coastal spits form and built out with time, the colors are coded for depositional age.
In this particular animation the incoming far-field wave distribution is weighted so that high angles with the shoreline are dominant, and the wave direction is predominantly from the left. +
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Daily estimates of the sea ice concentration based on remotely-sensed passive microwave data for 2009. The red colors are 100% sea ice, whereas the blue colors show sea ice free conditions (also called open water). +
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Emplacement of the topset by braided streams in an experimental fan-delta undergoing subsidence. Most significant alluvial processes are labeled. +
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Erosion process and river response caused by the sudden removal of a sediment dam, top view. +
Erosion process and river response caused by the sudden removal of a sediment dam, front view. +
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Evolution of river valley landscape, stratigraphy, and geoarchaeology, Channel Sands (Transverse Section) +
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Expansion of Sea Ice Free Days from 1920-2100
Sea ice covers large regions of the Arctic Ocean. At present, the northernmost waters remains frozen all year, in other regions seawater freezes every year when temperatures drop in October-November, and the sea ice thaws again when solar radiation is intense and long days prevail in the early summer.
This sea ice dataset shows how long the ‘open water season’ lasts for any location in the Arctic region. The duration of open water is relevant for ecosystem and coastal processes, and human activities such as shipping, industrial development, fishing and indigenous mammal hunting.
Maps of the open water season over 1920-2100 are calculated averaging output of 30 simulations of the Community Earth System Model (CESM). This climate model describes the physical processes of the atmosphere, ocean, land surface and sea ice and their interactions. For historical times, 1920-2005 in this specific case, the model can be forced by real-world observations of incoming solar radiation and concentrations of greenhouse gasses and aerosols. For the future, 2005-2100, a scenario has to be chosen; scientists have precisely defined a suite of different scenarios called ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’. The model simulations analyzed here used the ‘RCP 8.5’ scenario, which assumes that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise throughout the 21st century.
Sea ice can be seen to cover large parts of the Arctic in the mid-20th century. For example, at that time the open water season is as short as 2 month along the Alaskan and Siberian coasts. Other parts of the Arctic Ocean remain frozen all year, such as the Canadian Archipelago, where explorers stranded in the ice many times.
Over the duration of the simulation global warming causes the open water season to vastly expand. The retreat of sea ice has started already in the late 20th century, and scientists have observed with satellites the expansion of the open water season over the last 35 years. The model predicts that by 2050, the entire Arctic coastal region will experience 60 additional days of ice-free conditions.
A longer open water season triggers coastal change, because longer exposure to waves and storm surges cause erosion of the Arctic permafrost coast. Acceleration of erosion and coastal flooding is to be expected with the expansion of the open water season. Coastal villages in Arctic Alaska may need to be better protected or relocated in the future.
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Floodplain evolution, Sediment age distribution in subsurface +
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Fluvial deposition with minimal plume and wave reworking. Note the resulting highly stratified sediment deposition. +
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Footage of the rapid outflow of water through the breach in the Mississippi River levee at Birds Point-New Madrid. On May 3, 2011 the US Army Corps of Engineers blasted a breach into the levee protecting the Bird's Point-New Madrid floodway, flooding 530 km2 of crops and farmland in Mississippi County, Missouri. The breach was induced to save Cairo, IL (population ~3000) at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi River and the rest of the levee system, from floodwaters. The breach displaced around 200 residents of Missouri's Mississippi and New Madrid counties, at the same time the city of Cairo was evacuated for safety, but remained unharmed. +
Footage of the second set of detonations applied to breach the levee at Birds Point-New Madrid.On May 3-4, 2011 the US Army Corps of Engineers blasted a breach into the levee protecting the Bird's Point-New Madrid floodway, flooding 530 km2 of crops and farmland in Mississippi County, Missouri. The breach was induced to save Cairo, IL (population ~3000) at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi River and the rest of the levee system, from floodwaters. The breach displaced around 200 residents of Missouri's Mississippi and New Madrid counties, at the same time the city of Cairo was evacuated for safety, but remained unharmed. +
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Gravity currents move over different bedform topography, ranging from a flat bed to dunes and ribs. These experiments were conducted to evaluate the capacity of gravity currents to propagate over an array of identical obstacles to entrain sediment from the loose channel bed and to carry it downstream for some distance in the form of a turbidity current.
First you can see how the structure, front velocity, energy balance and sediment entrainment capacity of a compositional gravity current is affected by the presence of the obstacles, and then you can see the effect of the shape and size of the obstacles. +
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Here we see an aerial view of the massive floodwaters draining over the coastal plain/sandur in Iceland.
This jokhulhlaup is associated with the volcanic eruption of April, 2010.
The 2nd Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption in south Iceland for 2010. It started on 14.04.2010. GPS coordinates of the eruption: 63.629° N, 19.630° W. Video by Icelandic National TV station RÚV. Music by Ceiri Torjussen;
The movie show the shallow floodwater washing over the main highway of Iceland, and washing it out in several places. There was extensive damage to farm field and local houses of the debris/ash.
The shallowness of the water can also be seen from the standing waves (again). +
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Humans have manipulated rivers for thousands of years, but over the last 200 years dams on rivers have become rampant. Reservoirs and dams are constructed for water storage, to reduce the risk of river flooding, and for the generation of power. They are one of the major footprints of humans on Earth and change the world’s hydrological cycle.
This dataset illustrates the construction of dams worldwide from 1800 to the present. We display all dams listed in the Global Reservoir and Dam Database (GRanD). It includes 6,862 records of reservoirs and their associated dams. All dams that have a reservoir with a storage capacity of more than 0.1 cubic kilometers are included, and many smaller dams were added where data were available. The total amount of water stored behind these dams sums to 6,2 km3.
The red dots indicate the newly built dams and reservoirs each year, and the yellow dots represent the dams already in place.
The dams and reservoirs do not only store water, they also trap the incoming sediment that the river transports. Consequently, much less sand and clay travels to the coast, where it would normally be depositing in the delta region. The reduced sediment load of major rivers has influenced the vulnerability of many deltas worldwide.
Japan built many dams already in the early 19th century. Another early hotspot for dam construction was the US East Coast, where many medium-sized dams were constructed for grain milling and saw mills.
In the 20th century, large engineering projects developed dams in more arid regions for drinking water and irrigation water storage, and worldwide for electric power generation. Most recently, large construction projects have been completed in China, including the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. +
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Hurricane Ike developed in early September and passed over Cuba. It did heavy damage in Cuba (it was one of the most expensive hurricanes for that country ever). Ike developed in a category 2 hurricane and made landfall near Galveston, TX on September 13th, 2008.
This animation shows results of a Delft3D simulation to study the effects of Hurricane Ike (2008) on the Wax Lake delta in Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana (USA). The model domain is 25 by 30km.
The movie shows salinity before, during and after this hurricane event.
Water in the Wax lake delta is relatively fresh, during the entire period there was continuous river discharge being fed into the delta system. The river discharge is more important during high tides and storm events when brackish water progrades into the delta then under normal conditions. This is the pulsing of the system you can see in the beginning of the simulation. Hurricane Ike pushed saline water into the delta (the red color), at the peak of the event the entire delta was submerged and the salinity approached 20-25 ppt. Note that saline water persisted long in some of the Wax lake wetlands: even on the 18th of September, 5 days after the actual landfall there is still high salinity. This had a major effect on the wetland vegetation and would kill some of the freshwater species on the islands. +
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Hurricane Rita was an intense tropical cyclone, which occurred in September 2005, a few weeks after hurricane Katrina. It was a really intense event, with high sustained winds (upto 38 m/s) and waves in the Gulf of Mexico were observed to be over 6 m high. The hurricane made landfall in Texas on September 24th, directly west of the area shown in this simulation.
This animation shows results of a Delft3D simulation to study the effects of Hurricane Rita on the Wax Lake delta in Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana (USA). The model domain is 25 by 30km. We are showing a set of parameters of this hurricane event to compare the erosion and sedimentation that occurred cumulatively over the entire event (this animation), the water level and wave height (other animations in the EKT repository). Sedimentation or erosion of sand in the Wax lake delta is rather low under normal conditions, perhaps a few cm's transported by the fastest ebb and flood tide currents.
On September 24th 2005 hurricane Rita approaches and sedimentation and erosion become much more dramatic. When the hurricane makes landfall, the delta is inundated by 2-3 m of water and waves become as high as 1.6m. Bottom shear stress is then high and sediment can be easily transported. Note that erosion and sedimentation happen simultaneously; near the edges of channels there is rapid erosion (upto 40 cm over the entire storm), while nearby sediments are being deposited on the islands and bars. The erosion and sedimentation pattern is influenced by the exact storm track of this particular hurricane, the angle at which the waves apporach the coast determine the areas of most rapid change. +
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Hurricane Rita was an intense tropical cyclone, which occurred in September 2005. It was a really intense event, with high sustained winds (upto 38 m/s) and waves in the Gulf of Mexico were observed to be over 6 m high. The hurricane made landfall in Texas on September 24th, directly west of the area shown in this simulation.
This animation shows results of a Delft3D simulation to study the effects of Hurricane Rita on the Wax Lake delta in Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana (USA). The model domain is 25 by 30km.
We are showing a set of parameters of this hurricane event to compare the water level (this animation), the wave height and the erosion and deposition in the delta (other animations in the EKT repository). The water level in the Wax lake delta varies with the tidal cycle in the Atchafalaya Bay, you can see the tides flooding the delta and small islands and bars emerging during low tide.
On September 24th 2005 hurricane Rita approaches and sets down the water, then the eye passes and the delta is inundated by 2-3 m of water. +
Hurricane Rita was an intense tropical cyclone, which occurred in September 2005, a few weeks after hurricane Katrina. It was a really intense event, with high sustained winds (upto 38 m/s) and waves in the Gulf of Mexico were observed to be over 6 m high. The hurricane made landfall in Texas on September 24th, directly west of the area shown in this simulation.
This animation shows results of a Delft3D simulation to study the effects of Hurricane Rita on the Wax Lake delta in Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana (USA). The model domain is 25 by 30km. We are showing a set of parameters of this hurricane event to compare the significant wave height (this animation), the water level and the erosion and deposition in the delta (other animations in the EKT repository).
This simulation explores the effect of vegetation on the islands in the delta. In the accompanying simulation vegetation was ignored, for this particular run vegetation is introduced as a roughness coefficient (vegetation is modeled based on 'cylinders' present in the flowing water).
The wave height in the Wax lake delta is rather low under normal conditions as you can see in the beginning of the animation. At high tide, wave heights may be a few 10's of cm's. On September 24th 2005 hurricane Rita approaches and sets down the water, wave heights are then still low. But when the hurricane makes landfall closeby, the delta is inundated by 2-3 m of water and waves become as high as 1.5m. Note that the waves are highest in the main channels of the delta (because the water is deeper there). You can see the effect of vegetation is small, the waves on the islands are only dampened slightly. The effect of vegetation is not as important for waves during a hurricane as it is during some more moderate storms. +
Hurricane Rita was an intense tropical cyclone, which occurred in September 2005, a few weeks after hurricane Katrina. It was a really intense event, with high sustained winds (upto 38 m/s) and waves in the Gulf of Mexico were observed to be over 6 m high. The hurricane made landfall in Texas on September 24th, directly west of the area shown in this simulation.
This animation shows results of a Delft3D simulation to study the effects of Hurricane Rita on the Wax Lake delta in Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana (USA). The model domain is 25 by 30km. We are showing a set of parameters of this hurricane event to compare the significant wave height (this animation), the water level and the erosion and deposition in the delta (other animations in the EKT repository). The wave height in the Wax lake delta is rather low under normal conditions as you can see in hte beginningof the animation. At high tide, wave heights may be a few 10's of cm's. On September 24th 2005 hurricane Rita approaches and sets down the water, wave heights are then still low. But when the hurricane makes landfall closeby, the delta is inundated by 2-3 m of water and waves become as high as 1.6m. Note that the waves are highest in the main channels of the delta (because the water is deeper there). +
Hurricane Rita was an tropical cyclone, which occurred in September 2005. It was a really intense event, with high sustained winds (upto 38 m/s) and waves in the Gulf of Mexico were observed to be over 12 m high. The hurricane made landfall in Texas on September 24th.
This animation shows results of a Delft3D-SWAN simulation to study the effects of Hurricane Rita. The simulations were intended to model effect on the Wax Lake delta, as small delta in Atchafalaya Bay. Louisiana, USA. To simulate details in this small region a larger grid for the entire Gulf of Mexico had to be simulate to make sure the boundary conditions for the smaller-scale experiment were accurate. This method of nesting a detailed model experiment into a large scale modeling omain is commonly needed in coastal and estuarine modeling (and in weather modeling as well).
The Gulf of Mexico hydrodynamics model is driven by yet another set of large-scale modeling and observational data on tides and driven by winds. Tides are ingested at the at the ocean boundaries based on results from the TPXO 7.2 Global Inverse Tide Model (http://volkov.oce.orst.edu/tides/TPXO7.2.html). The input for the wind field with a spatial resolution of 0.05° and a temporal resolution of 15 minutes, comes from the combination of NOAA Hurricane Research Division Wind Analysis System (H*WIND, Powell et al., 1998), and the Interactive Objective Kinematic Analysis (IOKA) kinematic wind analysis Cox et al., 1995). Lastly, bathymetry is derived from the Louisiana Virtual Coast Data Archive (http://virtual-coast.c4g.lsu.edu/), in which NOAA’s bathymetry sounding database, the Digital Nautical Charts database, and the 5-minute gridded elevations/bathymetry for the world (ETOPO5) database are combined.
Here we show the SWAN model results for the large-scale modeling domain; it is roughly 800 by 700 km. You can see how Hurricane Rita approaches as an "eye" traveling through the Gulf of Mexico. The wave heights generated due to the storm are tremendously high!
On September 24th 2005 hurricane Rita approaches the coast and wave heights break in the shallower water.
Hurricane Rita was an tropical cyclone, which occurred in September 2005. It was a really intense event, with high sustained winds (upto 38 m/s) and waves in the Gulf of Mexico were observed to be over 6 m high. The hurricane made landfall in Texas on September 24th.
This animation shows results of a Delft3D simulation to study the effects of Hurricane Rita. The simulations were intended to model effect o the Wax Lake delta, as small delta in Atchafalaya Bay. Louisiana, USA. To simulate details in this small region a larger grid for the entire Gulf of Mexico had to be simulate to make sure the boundary conditions for the smaller-scale experiment were accurate. This method of nesting a detailed model experiment into a large scale modeling omain is commonly needed in coastal and estuarine modeling (and in weather modeling as well).
The Gulf of Mexico hydrodynamics model is driven by yet another set of large-scale modeling and observational data on tides and driven by winds.
Tides are ingested at the at the ocean boundaries based on results from the TPXO 7.2 Global Inverse Tide Model (http://volkov.oce.orst.edu/tides/TPXO7.2.html). The input for the wind field with a spatial resolution of 0.05° and a temporal resolution of 15 minutes, comes from the combination of NOAA Hurricane Research Division Wind Analysis System (H*WIND, Powell et al., 1998), and the Interactive Objective Kinematic Analysis (IOKA) kinematic wind analysis Cox et al., 1995). Lastly, bathymetry is derived from the Louisiana Virtual Coast Data Archive (http://virtual-coast.c4g.lsu.edu/), in which NOAA’s bathymetry sounding database, the Digital Nautical Charts database, and the 5-minute gridded elevations/bathymetry for the world (ETOPO5) database are combined.
Here we show results for the large-scale modeling domain; it is roughly 800 by 700 km. You can see how Hurrican Rita approaches as an "eye" traveling through the Gulf of Mexico. On September 24th 2005 hurricane Rita approaches the coast and sets down the water, then the eye passes and the coast experiences a high water level of ~2 m of water due to the storm surge.
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In general, trees roots help prevent erosion from small erosion events. However, when really high winds occur, trees can be uprooted and cause a big disturbance of the soil/surface.
This video shows a tree being battered by high winds, probably near 130 km/hr, during the landfall of Hurrican Sandy. When a hurricane makes landfall wind speeds are reduced compared to the winds speed above the ocean water surface, still, the wind speeds in the coastal zone can be very high. You can see the grass mat in the backyard of a home in Long Island ripping by the shallow rooted large tree that is falling over. Not how much sediment is brought up with the root mass.
Numerical models have been designed to capture this process (a model called TreeThrow features in the CSDMS model repository). +
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In this animation global precipitation is measured in millimeters and averaged by month for a year. The shift in monthly averaged precipitation due to seasonal changes is apparent as the monsoon season comes to Western India and the Bay of Bengal region starting in June. Additionally the areas of high, year round precipitation resulting in the tropical climates can be seen and easily contrasted with the areas of little to no rain resulting in more arid climates. The global air circulation that results in the precipitation patterns seen in this movie can be seen in the Global Circulation movie. +
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Effects of high horizontal displacement rates on landscape evolution & pull-apart basins formation +
In this example, we impose over 2 millions of years a deformation field produced with Underworld over an initial flat surface (256 km square box at a resolution of 1 km). Over the deformed surface, a landscape evolution model, Badlands, is used to simulate both hillslope (creep) and overland flow processes (detachment limited) induced by an uniform precipitation rate of 1 m/yr (surface process resolution lower around 250 m).
The continuous 3D deformation field from Underworld is imported every 5000 years in Badlands as an average displacement rate (horizontal & vertical). The geodynamics model boundary conditions forces the formation of pull-apart basins. The internal structure of these basins is highly variable both in space and time owing to complex stress fields and heterogeneous crustal rheology around the termination of the delimiting faults. This complexity has led to several unresolved problems regarding the kinematics and dynamics of pull-apart basins.
Using the coupling between Badlands and Underworld it is now possible to test the time-dependent deformation patterns within pull-apart basins, and the relation of these basins with the adjacent deformed structural domains. +
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Jacobshavn Glacier is one of the largest tide-water glaciers of Greenland. It is located on the West-coast, and drains into Disco Bay.
The movie shows a calving event recorded on the 5th of June, 2007. Tremendous ice blocks calve off the active calving front of the glacier. The glacier always moves fast; at about 20m /day, and calving happens continously. Amundson et al., report 32 large events within 1 year, mostly in the period May to August.
This event is gigantic, to give an idea of scale; the calving front above water is ~100m high, below water there is another 900m hidden. The blocks that break off are about 1000m wide and a few 100m in the downflow direction. The triangular block that you see overtopple in this movie sticks 200 m out of the water! +
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Long stretches of permafrost coast in the Arctic region consist of ice-rich sediments. These permafrost areas have been experiencing rapid warming over the last decades. The warming melts the permafrost, but it also exposes the coast longer to the forces of the ocean because the sea-ice free season has expanded.
This particular simulation shows the permafrost coast near DrewPoint, along the Alaskan Beaufort Sea.
At Drew Point, there are nowadays about twice as many days of open water than in the late 1970's. The simulation calculates the distance to the sea ice edge, which is 100's of kilometers in August.
This means that storms can generate larger waves during that time of the year. Also when a storm passes and there are sustained winds, water will be 'set up' against the coast. You can see this increase in teh water level in the movie.
Absorped heat in the ocean water melts the ice in the toppled block. The bluff is approximately 4.5 m high. The block is not necessarily eroded by waves, but also just by melt ( this is called - thermal erosion). The warm sea water needs to touch the block and then rapid melt will occur. The massive block disappears in about a week. +
Long stretches of permafrost coast in the Arctic region consist of ice-rich sediments. These permafrost areas have been experiencing rapid warming over the last decades. The warming melts the permafrost, but it also exposes the coast longer to the forces of the ocean because the sea-ice free season has expanded.
This particular movie shows the permafrost coast near DrewPoint, along the Alaskan Beaufort Sea. At Drew Point, there are nowadays about twice as many days of open water than in the late 1970's. This results in more absorption of heat in the ocean water. The bluff is approximately 4.5 m high, and the block in the movies is about 13 m long. The block is not necessarily eroded by waves, but also just by melt ( this is called - thermal erosion). The warm sea water needs to touch the block and then rapid melt will occur. The massive block disappears in about a week. +
