Coastal systems

"The coast is simply where the land meets the sea." from Coastal Systems by Simon K. Haslett (Routledge, Taylor and Francis, London 2000)

"As a matter of some urgency, researchers concerned with coastal evolution should consider the alternative models, even if there are few supporting data. The ideas of non-linear response, stochastic developement, deterministic chaos, catastrophism and criticality all deserve investigation." from "Coastal Evolution. Late Quaternary shoreline morphodynamics" Ed. R.W.G.Carter and C.D. Woodroffe (Cambridge University Press 1994.)

Fractal Coasts

An example of a fractal coast: Nort west coast of Spain (picture obtained from The coastline Extractor)

Some measures of Earth coastlines fractal dimension: fractality of world coastlines.

A simple model of rocky coasts erosion

Self-Stabilised Fractality of Sea-Coasts through Erosion

by Bernard Sapoval, Andrea Baldassarri, Andrea Gabrielli

We propose a minimal model for the formation of rocky coast morphology. This model bears on the reciprocal evolution of the erosion power and the topography of the coast submitted to that erosion: The more irregularly eroded the coast is, the weaker the average sea erosion power. This retroaction leads to the spontaneous formation of a "stable" fractal seacoast.

The paper has been published in Physical Review Letters Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 098501 (2004)

Download a preprint of the paper: cond-mat/0311509

Press releases

• Read the Nature Science Update article, by Philip Ball: Nature Science Update 23 Nov 2003 (Download a local postscript copy)

• Read the review appeared in the Physics News Update bulletttin by the American Institue of Physics: Physics News Update 697 (Download a local postscript copy)

• Read the review appeared in the Americal Physical Society News: APS News February 2005 Issue (Download a local pdf copy)

• Article appeared in La Recherche: L'Actualitè des Science: N. 381 - December 2004 Read the article (subscribers only)

Additional illustrative materials based on our model

Slides

• talk-restricted.pdf: Slides for Fortaleza Congress: "Physics Survey of Irregular Systems" August 2004

Movies

Animations by Jean-Francois Colonna. Follow the link and click on the picture to get the mpg file.

1. erosion of a flat shore
2. flat shore with a bump
3. four islands

Other movies by J-F.Colonna.

Pictures

Artistic views of the model by Jean-Francois Colonna: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Some usefull inks

1. The Coastline Extractor http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/shorelines/shorelines.html
2. Fractal Erosion http://www.forester.net/ecm_0205_fractal.html
3. Jean-Francois Colonna http://www.lactamme.polytechnique.fr/
4. Barton C., http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/barton/web
5. Greve C. http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/marine/lect/imsb/greve-l11.html
6. Barton C., http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/barton/pubs/fractalmap.pdf
7. Barton C., http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/barton/pubs/coastal.pdf
8. GSHHS Database http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/wessel/gshhs/gshhs.html