Objects in nature are often very irregular, so that, within the constraints of Euclidean geometry, one is forced to approximate their shape grossly. A rock fragment, for example, is treated as being spherical, and a coastline straight or smoothly curved. Upon examination, however, these objects are found to be jagged, and their jaggedness does not diminish when viewed at ever finer scales. In his monumental work, Mandelbrot (1982) developed and popularized fractal geometry, a geometry that applies to many irregular natural objects. The analytical techniques for treating fractal geometry and their inter-relationships have undergone rapid development and broad application (Feder, 1988). Fractal geometry has been applied to a wide variety of g...