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Exploring the morphodynamics of river deltas and barrier islands with simple models
Jorge Trueba, Montclair State University
About the Seminar
The continued increase in power and availability of computing resources has led to the use of more numerical models in the study of Earth Systems, which tend to become more complex each year. However, recent research within the math, physics and earth sciences communities has demonstrated that complex behaviors don’t need to have complex causes. Relatively simple models (conceptual, numerical, and physical) continue to reveal much about the critical feedbacks that give rise to observed natural phenomena. Research has demonstrated that basic hydrodynamic and sediment transport relationships, combined with the conservation of mass, can reproduce the patterns of erosion and deposition that give rise to many landscape features. In this talk I will present a few examples of these simple models, with particular application to barrier islands and fluvial deltas.