In December, 2014, I spent two weeks at St Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL) – part of the University of Minnesota, home of the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED & NCED2), and an NSF Science & Technology Center.
In geomorphology, SAFL is an experimentalist’s Mecca. And sure enough, my time there – on a research grant from the British Society for Geomorphology and support from the NCED2 Visiting Scholars program – opened up for me a whole new world of inquiry. (I’m forever indebted to Chris Paola for the invitation.)
The work that emerged from that brief visit continues to pay dividends, yield new results, and offer wonderful surprises.
GALLERY
Rotameter (exploded diagram). 
This morning’s trial. 
Initial topography (top), final topography (middle), difference (bottom). 
An advancing wetting front – this is how each trial starts. 
The difference some dye makes. 
Initial results – overwash lobes distributed “alongshore.” 
These little channels set their own spacing. 
Scanning the final trial. 
Lobe in the foreground starved out the others – runaway flow capture.
RELATED BLOG POSTS
https://envidynxlab.org/2014/12/02/morphodynamics-of-breaching-experiments-stcnced-saflumn-day-1/
https://envidynxlab.org/2014/12/04/someones-gotta-help-me-dig-day-3-stcnced-saflumn/
(You can find a few more posts from the archives if you search for the tags SAFL or NCED2.)
RELATED PUBLICATIONS
Lazarus ED, *Davenport KL, Matias A (2020) Dynamic allometry in coastal overwash morphology, Earth Surface Dynamics 8, 37–50. (open access: link)
Lazarus ED (2016) Scaling laws for coastal overwash morphology, Geophysical Research Letters 43, 12113–12119 (doi:). (Abstract; PDF by request)
Lazarus ED, *Armstrong S (2015) Self-organized pattern formation in coastal barrier washover deposits, Geology 43(4), 363–366. (Abstract; PDF by request)
The Environmental Dynamics Lab (EDL) 