UniMainzGeo
Elevation-dependent erosion rate
Dear developers, I am wondering if it is feasible to add an elevation-dependent erosion rate in LaMEM. The existing LaMEM (and LaMEM.jl) has only three surface erosion models: no erosion, infinitely fast, and constant/prescribed erosion rate.
Although the "constant/prescribed erosion rate" can evolve with the changing reference levels and the time periods. It cannot automatically change the erosion rate with the existing topography.
I propose adding a simple elevation-dependent erosion rate following the paper (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GC003121) (see Eq. 3 and the paragraph immediately below the equation) in which a simple erosion model is proposed for continental‐scale processes. Basically the erosion rate $E$ is a linear function of $\Delta H$. $\Delta H$ is the elevation difference between the local topography and a fixed reference level.
The fitting parameter between $E$ and $\Delta H$ captures climatological and lithological conditions, which can be assumed to be a constant for simplicity. If such an elevation-dependent erosion rate is implemented, it will be good to allow setting the fitting parameter and the reference level as well.
This is not very high on our priority list, as we have no ongoing funded projects that require this. Yet we are happy to evaluate a pull request. The relevant code is surf.cpp. You can implement a new erosion law around this part of the file, and specify input parameters at the beginning of the routine. Make sure that the correct dimensions are specified (velocity or length and such), as internally all is being non-dimensionalized.
@boriskaus thanks for the information. I assume to develop LaMEM, I need to install the original cpp version LaMEM (I have seen the steps from the installation instruction).