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How big is a boulder? Evaluating fixed and process-based definitions for boulders

How big is a boulder? Evaluating fixed and process-based definitions for boulders

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Authors

Richard Mason , Lina E. Polvi

Abstract

Boulders are globally widespread and influence landscape processes across hillslopes, coasts, rivers and extra-terrestrial settings. Boulders are described as particles, sufficiently large, that the movement of an individual grain promotes substantial geomorphic change. Moving beyond this conceptual definition, however, requires a somewhat arbitrary decision of how to define a minimum boulder size. Furthermore, the implications of boulder definition on study findings are rarely considered. We compare two lower thresholds for boulder size; a fixed boulder minimum diameter (> 1 m) and a variable diameter relative to the surface grain size di...  more

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31223/X57H5N

Subjects

Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Keywords

geomorphology, landscape evolution, boulder-bed river, channel-hillslope coupling, sediment transport, landscape evolution, boulder bed river, channel hillslope coupling, sediment transport, roughness

Dates

Published: 2023-07-29 02:18

Last Updated: 2023-07-29 09:18

License

CC-BY Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Data Availability (Reason not available):
Data can be made available upon request of the authors.