Experimental evidence for self-affine roughening in a micromodel of geomorphological evolution

Abstract

An experimental evidence for kinetic roughening in a micromodel of mountain ranges is presented. We have observed that during the watering of an initially smooth ridge made of a mixture of silica sand and earthy soil the surface evolves into a shape analogous to actual mountain profiles with self-affine geometry. For the exponents describing respectively the temporal and the spatial scaling of the surface width β≊0.9 and α=0.78±0.05 have been obtained. The latter value is in very good agreement with α=0.8±0.1 we have calculated for genuine transect profiles.