Related papers: A numerical retro-action model relates rocky coast…
Erosion of rocky coasts spontaneously creates irregular seashores. But the geometrical irregularity, in turn, damps the sea-waves, decreasing the average wave amplitude. There may then exist a mutual self-stabilisation of the waves…
Using numerical simulations of a simple sea-coast mechanical erosion model, we investigate the effect of spatial long-range correlations in the lithology of coastal landscapes on the fractal behavior of the corresponding coastlines. In the…
We show that rocky shorelines with fractal dimension 4/3 are conformally invariant curves by measuring the statistics of their winding angles from global high-resolution data. Such coastlines are thus statistically equivalent to the outer…
Coastal erosion describes the displacement of land caused by destructive sea waves, currents or tides. Major efforts have been made to mitigate these effects using groynes, breakwaters and various other structures. We address this problem…
The size of large cliff failures may be described in several ways, for instance considering the horizontal eroded area at the cliff top and the maximum local retreat of the coastline. Field studies suggest that, for large failures, the…
This article introduces a new geophysical theory, in the form of a single simple partial integro-differential equation, to explain how frictional abrasion alone of a stone on a planar beach can lead to the oval shapes observed empirically.…
Coastal erosion describes the displacement of land caused by destructive sea waves, currents or tides. Major efforts have been made to mitigate these effects using groins, breakwaters and various other structures. We try to address this…
New fractal subset of a rough surface, the ``oceanic coastline'', is defined. For random Gaussian surfaces with negative Hurst exponent $H<0$, ``oceanic coastlines'' are mapped to the percolation clusters of the (correlated) percolation…
The deformation of rocks is associated with microcracks nucleation and propagation, i.e. damage. The accumulation of damage and its spatial localization lead to the creation of a macroscale discontinuity, so-called "fault" in geological…
We revisit a known model in which (conducting) blocks are hierarchically and randomly deposited on a $d$-dimensional substrate according to a hyperbolic size law with the block size decreasing by a factor $\lambda \, > 1$ in each subsequent…
Large arrays of wave-absorbing structures could serve the double objective of coastal protection against erosion and clean, renewable electrical power production. In this work, the principle of an artificial canopy is explored, which…
Coastal erosion is a major and growing environmental problem describing the movement of sand caused by tides, waves or currents. Several phenomena contribute to the significant advance of the sea. These include climate change, with rising…
Percolation is a model for random damage to a network. It is one of the simplest models that displays a phase transition: when the network is severely damaged, it falls apart in many small connected components, while if the damage is light,…
We propose a mechanical model for the behaviour of rocks based on progressive damage at the elementary scale and elastic interaction. It allows us to simulate several experimental observations: mechanical behaviour ranging from brittle to…
The description of complex wave processes, in addition to the shoaling problem, is often cumbersome even for the evolution of regular waves. For reflection under the regime of wave breaking, the surf similarity is generally accepted as the…
Self-similarity and long-range correlations are the remarkable features of the Earth's surface topography. Here we develop an approach based on percolation theory to study the geometrical features of Earth. Our analysis is based on…
The margins within the geographic range of species are often specific in terms of ecological and evolutionary processes, and can strongly influence the species' reaction to climate change. One of the frequently observed features at range…
Atolls are traditionally explained as the result of coral reefs accreting around volcanic islands followed by gradual subsidence, yielding a hollow, ring-shaped rim that can extend for kilometres. However, satellite imagery shows that…
The mechanism that causes an interdecadal oscillation in a coarse resolution sector ocean model forced by mixed boundary conditions is studied. The oscillation is characterized by large fluctuations in convective activity and air/sea heat…
Ocean acidification is a threat to deep-sea corals and could lead to dramatic and rapid loss of the reef framework habitat they build. Weakening of structurally critical parts of the coral reef framework can lead to physical habitat…