Transition between stable states in the dynamics of soil development

The dynamics of soil development and erosion is studied through a stochasti c soil mass balance in which the soil production by bedrock weathering is e xpressed as a state-dependent deterministic function, while the erosion by landslides is modeled as a marked Poisson process. For a range of values of the parameters the dynamics is bistable and the noise drives the transitio ns from a state to another through a potential barrier. The rates of such a transition are analytically estimated and their dependence on the system p arameters is briefly discussed.