Synoptic- to meso-scale circulation connects fluvial and coastal gravel conveyors and directional deposition of coastal landforms in the Dead Sea basin
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract. Streams convey coarse-clastic sediments towards coasts, where interactions with deltaic and coastal processes determine the resultant landscape morphology. Although extracting hydroclimatic signals from landscapes is a desired goal, many studies rely on interpreting paleoclimatic proxies and the link between depositional/geomorphic processes and the hydroclimate remains vague. This is a consequence of the challenge to link processes that often are studied separately, span across large spatial and temporal scales including synoptic-scale hydroclimatic forcing, stream flows, water body hydrodynamics, fluvial and coastal sediment transport, and sedimentation. Here, we explore this chain of connected processes in the unique setting of the Dead Sea basin, where present-day hydroclimatology is tied closely with geomorphic evolution and sediment transport of streams and coasts that rapidly respond to lake-level fall. We use a five-years-long (2018–2022) rich dataset of (i) high-resolution synoptic-scale circulation patterns, (ii) continuous wind-wave and rain-floods records, and (iii) storm-scale fluvial and coastal sediment transport of varied-mass, ‘smart’ and marked boulders. We show that Mediterranean cyclones approaching the eastern Mediterranean are the main circulation pattern that can provide sufficient rainfall and winds that concurrently activate two perpendicular sediment conveyors: fluvial (floods) and coastal (wind-waves). The synoptic-scale westerlies (>10 m s-1) are orographically funneled inside the Dead Sea rift valley, turning into surface southerlies. They generate 10–30 high-amplitude northward propagating storm waves per winter, with <4 m wave height. Such storms transport cobbles for hundreds of meters alongshore, north of the supplying channel mouths. Towards the decay of the storm wave, the high-altitude synoptic westerlies provide moisture to generate 4–9 flash-floods, delivering unsorted coarse gravels into the basin. These gravels are dispersed alongshore by waves only during subsequent storms. As storm waves dominates and are >five times more frequent than flash-floods, coarse-clastic beach berms and fan-deltas are deposited preferentially north of channel mouths. This depositional architecture, controlled by regional hydroclimate, is identified for both the modern and Late Pleistocene coast and delta environments, implying that the dominance of present-day Mediterranean cyclones has persisted in the region since the Late Pleistocene when Lake Lisan occupied the basin.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".