Smartrock Transport From Seconds to Seasons: Shear Stress Controls on Gravel Diffusion Inferred From Hop and Rest Scaling

Our ability to test probabilistic models linking clast movements to bedload diffusion is most limited by basic field data, because measuring transport statistics during natural floods is difficult. We embedded accelerometers and gyroscopes into artificial cobbles, and measured transport during 28 daily snowmelt floods in Halfmoon Creek, Colorado, USA. The tracers captured ≈6 orders of temporal magnitude of rest durations in one data set for the first time. Motions and rests suggest a scaling transition around ≈12.5 min from subdiffusion to superdiffusion with increasing shear stress and timescale. We interpret that diurnal hydrograph cyclicity may cause another diffusion scaling break at ≈12 h. Shear stress controls and scaling uncertainties may explain differences in diffusion exponents found in several field data sets, suggesting that gravel superdiffusion scaling may be relatively universal over minutes to seasons. Methodologically, “smartrocks” can quantify field transport probabilities previously only possible in laboratory experiments.