Stochastic Transport and Emergent Scaling in Earth-Surface Processes (STRESS 2) Workshop

Event Info

Date/Time: 

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - 08:00 - Friday, November 6, 2009 - 14:00

Location: 

Tahoe Environmental Research Center in Incline Village, NV

Power-laws and scaling are frequently observed in Earth surface morphology suggesting that heavy-tailed stochastic models and fractional PDEs may be powerful tools for describing processes and transport laws that take place on the Earth’s surface from the hillslope to the whole river network.  The STRESS 1 workshop, held in November 2007, catalyzed exploration of ideas, in research and applications, in the area of stochastic transport and emergent scaling in earth-surface processes.  Using novel statistical mechanical tools we studied emergent behavior of physical processes characterized by extreme deviation from average behavior on a small scale.  Approximately 20 manuscripts, including 15 in a special issue of Journal of Geophysical Research-Earth Surface, explore new models that can reproduce relevant features of sediment transport, retention, and deposition; deformation of bedforms; hillslope evolution and transport processes; landslide rupture and debris mobilization; and transport on river networks.  At the STRESS 2 workshop , we will again convene experts in Earth-surface processes and mathematicians and scientists who have successfully applied heavy-tailed stochastic theory and fractional differential equations in both Earth-surface science other disciplines.