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Slope Avalanche Cascades: Power-Law Size Distribution (2D)

2D avalanche-slope lab: snow loads a smoothstep-profiled mountainside, a critical-depth cascade releases it once g·sinθ overcomes friction, and a log-binned histogram of cascade sizes reveals the power-law signature of self-organized criticality.

Chaos & Dynamics2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version
2d-3d-avalanche ↗ Open standalone

This 2D companion drives the same slope-angle-versus-friction competition as the 3D avalanche (g·sinθ against μ·g·cosθ along a terrain that eases from a steep release zone into a shallow runout) but replaces orbiting scenery with a continuous snow-depth field you can read directly: snow accumulates until a cell's depth crosses a cohesion-scaled critical threshold, releases into its downhill neighbour, and can cascade the whole slope in one go. A log-binned histogram of cascade sizes accumulates alongside the profile, making the self-organized-criticality signature of avalanche dynamics — many small slips, a few huge ones, no typical size — visible as data instead of only as a single dramatic run.

⚙ Under the hood

A 2D avalanche-slope lab where snow loads a smoothstep-profiled mountainside and releases through a critical-depth cascade once gravity along the slope overcomes friction, building a log-binned histogram of cascade sizes that reveals the power-law signature of self-organized criticality.

avalancheself-organized criticalitypower-law distributionslope stabilitycascading failuresnowpack physics

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install

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