IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v460y2009i7254d10.1038_nature08174.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Formation of evenly spaced ridges and valleys

Author

Listed:
  • J. Taylor Perron

    (Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA)

  • James W. Kirchner

    (University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
    Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)
    Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH))

  • William E. Dietrich

    (University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA)

Abstract

Landscapes explained Seen from above, it's clear that in many hilly landscapes the ridges and valleys appear uniformly spaced. Current physically based models of landscape evolution produce realistic looking topography, but cannot predict the 'wavelength' typical of evenly spaced ridges and valleys in natural landscapes. Taylor Perron and colleagues use equations of mass conservation and sediment transport to derive a characteristic length scale that is directly proportional to the ridge–valley wavelength in models of landform evolution and at five field study sites across the United States, including Nappa Valley in California and Point of the Mountain in Utah. The findings provide a quantitative explanation for one of the most widely observed characteristics of landscapes and suggest that valley spacing records the effects of material properties and climate on erosional processes.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Taylor Perron & James W. Kirchner & William E. Dietrich, 2009. "Formation of evenly spaced ridges and valleys," Nature, Nature, vol. 460(7254), pages 502-505, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:460:y:2009:i:7254:d:10.1038_nature08174
    DOI: 10.1038/nature08174
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08174
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature08174?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roeland C. van de Vijsel & Jim van Belzen & Tjeerd J. Bouma & Daphne van der Wal & Bas W. Borsje & Stijn Temmerman & Loreta Cornacchia & Olivier Gourgue & Johan van de Koppel, 2023. "Vegetation controls on channel network complexity in coastal wetlands," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Alexey Victorov & Veronika Kapralova & Timofey Orlov & Olga Trapeznikova & Maria Arkhipova, 2022. "Research into Cryolithozone Spatial Pattern Changes Based on the Mathematical Morphology of Landscapes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-19, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:460:y:2009:i:7254:d:10.1038_nature08174. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.