Энергетический подход к анализу глобального рельефа земной поверхности

Аннотация

Relief is considered a necessary element of the Earth's surface energy balance being a kind of a secondary storage of the energy. In terms of energy the author examines the assumption that the solid Earth surf ace elevations within the limits of continents are distributed accordingly to the «normal» law. The distribution however is proved to be normal only in the area of highest elevations, while at most part of continents (about 96% of the area) the elevations distribution corresponds to the inverse hyperbolic sine, which means that the topographic masses posess the least quantity of the total potential energy relative to an average level. The energy approach considered to be promising for the development of the unified theory of the Earth's relief evolution.