Project Description

From GeoMod

My project will assess drainage-basin asymmetry. The goal is to import drainage-basin data from a DEM into VPython and then create a mid-line through the basin (with equal distances between the left and right boundaries of the basin). The current river channel will also be modeled into it's drainage-basin. With this base data hopefully a ratio of Da/Dd can be determined. Where Da is equal to the distance (on a predetermined line) from the river channel to the drainage mid-line and Dd is equal to the distance from the basin boundary to the same point along the mid-line. This ratio along with directionality will produce a two dimensional vector that will assess the drainage-basin asymmetry of a laterally migrating river channel.

If this seems to come out well and work how I would like it, I will try moving the topography and see how this will effect the channel migration and possibly how long it will take to stabilize itself.

The reason that I have chosen this project is that if we can show a perferred orientation to the assymetry of the drainage-basin, this data (by ruling out other processes, eg. lithology) could be an indication of how a fault block has moved and where an unknown fault is located. When all other means of finding a fault have been exasperated, geomorphology is very useful for relative (and hopefully exact) locations.

Acknowledgments: Dr. Cox, Dr. Urbano