The Fractal Nature of Planetary Landforms and Implications to Geologic Mapping
| Autor: | Stuart J. Robbins |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
Length scale
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Parameterized complexity Geometry Technical Reports: Methods Environmental Science (miscellaneous) 01 natural sciences Fractal dimension Measure (mathematics) Remote Sensing Fractal Impact Phenomena Cratering 0103 physical sciences crater ejecta Instruments and Techniques 010303 astronomy & astrophysics Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets 0105 earth and related environmental sciences geologic mapping geography geography.geographical_feature_category Exploration Geophysics Landform Impact Phenomena craters Geologic map Planetary Mapping: Methods Tools for Scientific Analysis and Exploration Tectonophysics fractals General Earth and Planetary Sciences Planetary Sciences: Comets and Small Bodies Scale (map) Geology image resolution |
| Zdroj: | Earth and Space Science (Hoboken, N.j.) |
| ISSN: | 2333-5084 |
| Popis: | The primary product of planetary geologic and geomorphologic mapping is a group of lines and polygons that parameterize planetary surfaces and landforms. Many different research fields use those shapes to conduct their own analyses, and some of those analyses require measurement of the shape's perimeter or line length, sometimes relative to a surface area. There is a general lack of discussion in the relevant literature of the fact that perimeters of many planetary landforms are not easily parameterized by a simple aggregation of lines or even curves, but they instead display complexity across a large range of scale lengths; in fewer words, many planetary landforms are fractals. Because of their fractal nature, instead of morphometric properties converging on a single value, those properties will change based on the scale used to measure them. Therefore, derived properties can change—in some cases, by an order of magnitude or more—just when the measuring length scale is altered. This can result in significantly different interpretations of the features. Conversely, instead of a problem, analysis of the fractal properties of some landforms has led to diagnostic criteria that other remote sensing data cannot easily provide. This paper outlines the basic issue of the fractal nature of planetary landforms, gives case studies where the effects become important, and provides the recommendation that geologic mappers consider characterizing the fractal dimension of their mapped units via a relatively simple, straightforward calculation. Key Points I describe planetary features as fractals, and that fractal nature should be considered in geologic mappingI use specific examples of crater ejecta to show that interpretation is very dependent on measuring length scaleGeologic mappers (and others) may find characterization of a feature's fractal dimension to be a useful, additional, diagnostic metric |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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