Frontiers in Physics (Sep 2015)

Network topology of the desert rose

  • Sigmund Mongstad Hope,
  • Sigmund Mongstad Hope,
  • Sumanta eKundu,
  • Chandreyee eRoy,
  • Subhrangshu Sekhar Manna,
  • Alex eHansen

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2015.00072
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3

Abstract

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Desert roses are gypsum crystals that consist of intersecting disks. We determine their geometrical structure using computer assisted tomography. By mapping the geometrical structure onto a graph, the topology of the desert rose is analyzed and compared to a model based on diffusion limited aggregation. By comparing the topology, we find that the model gets a number of the features of the real desert rose right, whereas others do not fit so well.

Keywords