The “unreasonable effectiveness” of stratigraphic （地层的u201C不合理的有效性u201D）.pdf

Earth-Science Reviews 97 (2009) 1–43 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Earth-Science Reviews jour nal homepage : www. elsevier. com/ locate/earscirev The “unreasonable effectiveness” of stratigraphic and geomorphic experiments Chris Paola a,⁎, Kyle Straub a,b, David Mohrig c, Liam Reinhardt d a Department of Geology and Geophysics, St Anthony Falls Laboratory, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN 55414, United States b Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118, United States c Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, PO Box B, University Station, Austin, TX 78713, United States d Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Cornwall, TR10 9EZ, England, United Kingdom a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: The growth of quantitative analysis and prediction in Earth-surface science has been accompanied by growth Received 16 May 2008 in experimental stratigraphy and geomorphology. Experimenters have grown increasingly bold in targeting Accepted 25 May 2009 landscape elements from channel reaches up to the entire erosional networks and depositional basins, often Available online 17 June 2009 using very small facilities. The experiments produce spatial structure and kinematics that, although imperfe