ANALYSIS OF RELIEF MORPHOLOGY OF UKRAINIAN CARPATHIANS THROUGH THE METHOD OF AUTOCOVARIOGRAMS

Abstract

Quantitative morphometric relief analysis is a fast-growing research area concentrating on a set of important tasks. One of these is the quantitative characterization of relief forms and types that would allow to build their morphometric signatures and distinguish them objectively and automatically. This task can be accomplished by the analysis of autocovariance/autocorrelation structure of the surface. The task of present research has been to calculate the autocovariograms for terrain surfaces for five tectonic and geological zones of Ukrainian Carpathians and to analyze their general form using R script specially written for the task. This script takes as an input the digital elevation model (SRTM Version 4.1 DEM) cut for every zone, and outputs the table with two fields that keep the values of distances (lags) and corresponding autocovariances. This table in its turn can be depicted as a graph – autocovariogram, with plotting capabilities of R. While each of the five obtained autocovariogram looks similar, their closer analysis reveals some significant differences in detail. Generally, autocovariograms differ in their initial values, the presence of the detectable periodicity in terrain (indicated by pronounced local minimum in autocovariogram), and the range distance at which they approach 0. In general, features and parameters of autocovariogram can be indicative of tectonic structure and processes, the genesis and composition of rocks, and the dominant morphodynamic processes. Key words: geomorphometry, autocovariogram, R, digital elevation model, Ukrainian Carpathians.