New Modelling Acceleration Technique for Process-based Models in Geological Time-scale

Abstract

Process-based numerical models are increasingly used to study landscape evolution. Whilst a detailed description of small scale processes provides an accurate representation of reality, direct simulation on relevant time scales constitutes an unfeasible computational effort. Therefore, most process-based forward morphological models incorporate techniques that accelerate the morphological and stratigraphic development. This so-called morphological acceleration utilizes the difference between hydrodynamic and morphological response time scales. This imposes an upper limit of typically thousand years of time scale for these type of forward models. Given the relevance of base-level variations for whose period is more than thousand years, the development of additional acceleration techniques is required. Here we propose a new acceleration technique to facilitate the modeling the evolution of deltaic systems on the time scales of more than thousand years. The effect of the acceleration technique is analyzed for accommodation-driven deltas. The results show that as long as the [A]/[S] ratio is honored for the acceleration technique, the morphological indicators for the delta-plain geometries are well reproduced for accommodation-driven deltas. In conclusion, the usage of additional acceleration technique enables process-based models to reach long time-scales.