VARIABILITY OF SEDIMENTARY SEQUENCE - NUMERICAL MODELING OF THE DEPOSITION EROSION PROCESS

Reinterpretation of field studies of bedload transport allowed some po wer-law relations to be obtained between different quantities. They we re taken as a basis for the construction of a numerical model simulati ng bedload transport. The deposition-erosion process is presented as a sequence of individual events with intensities distributed according to a power law, characteristic of the regime of self-organized critica lity. The model output (sedimentary cross sections with the model age of each of its elements) is rich in features resulting from the non-li nearity of the underlying process. Analysis of the results of a series of numerical experiments provided an estimation of scale invariance o f model sedimentary structures in space and time. These data are teste d against observed regularities of spaciotemporal variability of real sedimentary sequences. Good agreement of these data makes it possible to extrapolate the scaling relations obtained to larger scales.