The Fluid Mechanics of Submarine Fan Morphogenesis: An Experimental Study

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

John Southard EAR 9909261 PI plans to continue his laboratory experiments on how turbidity currents construct submarine fans. The work is being done in a water-filled basin, 5 m by 5 m in area and 1 m deep, with a false floor onto which a suspension of silt-size glass bead sediment, at concentrations of a few percent by volume, is introduced as turbidity currents. Thirty to forty such flow events build a large submarine fan, with distinct internal stratification. As the deposit builds up, patterns of shifting channels develop on the fan. The next phase of the work will make use of more sophisticated profiling equipment to characterize in more detail the stratigraphic architecture of the deposit as a function of the flow characteristics of the turbidity currents.