Articles | Volume 7, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-7-911-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-7-911-2019
Research article
 | 
01 Oct 2019
Research article |  | 01 Oct 2019

How does the downstream boundary affect avulsion dynamics in a laboratory bifurcation?

Gerard Salter, Vaughan R. Voller, and Chris Paola

Data sets

Bifurcation Experiments: Timeseries, Images, Topographic Scans, St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, 2016-2017 G. Salter, V. R. Voller, and C. Paola https://doi.org/10.13020/ngys-r052

Bifurcation Experiments G. Salter, V. Voller, and C. Paola https://av.tib.eu/series/639/bifurcation+experiments

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Short summary
Bifurcations are the switches that steer water and sediment in delta and multithread river networks, playing an important role in shaping the landscape. In lab experiments, we found that when the downstream branches grow through time, frequent switching in the water and sediment partitioning occurs. In contrast, once sediment freely exits the downstream boundary, long periods of time when one branch dominates occur; however, unlike our theoretical prediction, these are not permanent.