Cargando…
Reconstructing the sediment concentration of a giant submarine gravity flow
Submarine gravity flows are responsible for the largest sediment accumulations on the planet, but are notoriously difficult to measure in action. Giant flows transport 100s of km(3) of sediment with run-out distances over 2000 km. Sediment concentration is a first order control on flow dynamics and...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2018
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6033887/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29976991 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05042-6 |
_version_ | 1783337762489892864 |
---|---|
author | Stevenson, Christopher John Feldens, Peter Georgiopoulou, Aggeliki Schӧnke, Mischa Krastel, Sebastian Piper, David J. W. Lindhorst, Katja Mosher, David |
author_facet | Stevenson, Christopher John Feldens, Peter Georgiopoulou, Aggeliki Schӧnke, Mischa Krastel, Sebastian Piper, David J. W. Lindhorst, Katja Mosher, David |
author_sort | Stevenson, Christopher John |
collection | PubMed |
description | Submarine gravity flows are responsible for the largest sediment accumulations on the planet, but are notoriously difficult to measure in action. Giant flows transport 100s of km(3) of sediment with run-out distances over 2000 km. Sediment concentration is a first order control on flow dynamics and deposit character. It has never been measured directly nor convincingly estimated in large submarine flows. Here we reconstruct the sediment concentration of a historic giant submarine flow, the 1929 “Grand Banks” event, using two independent approaches, each validated by estimates of flow speed from cable breaks. The calculated average bulk sediment concentration of the flow was 2.7–5.4% by volume. This is orders of magnitude higher than directly-measured smaller-volume flows in river deltas and submarine canyons. The new concentration estimate provides a test case for scaled experiments and numerical simulations, and a major step towards a quantitative understanding of these prodigious flows. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6033887 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-60338872018-07-09 Reconstructing the sediment concentration of a giant submarine gravity flow Stevenson, Christopher John Feldens, Peter Georgiopoulou, Aggeliki Schӧnke, Mischa Krastel, Sebastian Piper, David J. W. Lindhorst, Katja Mosher, David Nat Commun Article Submarine gravity flows are responsible for the largest sediment accumulations on the planet, but are notoriously difficult to measure in action. Giant flows transport 100s of km(3) of sediment with run-out distances over 2000 km. Sediment concentration is a first order control on flow dynamics and deposit character. It has never been measured directly nor convincingly estimated in large submarine flows. Here we reconstruct the sediment concentration of a historic giant submarine flow, the 1929 “Grand Banks” event, using two independent approaches, each validated by estimates of flow speed from cable breaks. The calculated average bulk sediment concentration of the flow was 2.7–5.4% by volume. This is orders of magnitude higher than directly-measured smaller-volume flows in river deltas and submarine canyons. The new concentration estimate provides a test case for scaled experiments and numerical simulations, and a major step towards a quantitative understanding of these prodigious flows. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-07-05 /pmc/articles/PMC6033887/ /pubmed/29976991 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05042-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Stevenson, Christopher John Feldens, Peter Georgiopoulou, Aggeliki Schӧnke, Mischa Krastel, Sebastian Piper, David J. W. Lindhorst, Katja Mosher, David Reconstructing the sediment concentration of a giant submarine gravity flow |
title | Reconstructing the sediment concentration of a giant submarine gravity flow |
title_full | Reconstructing the sediment concentration of a giant submarine gravity flow |
title_fullStr | Reconstructing the sediment concentration of a giant submarine gravity flow |
title_full_unstemmed | Reconstructing the sediment concentration of a giant submarine gravity flow |
title_short | Reconstructing the sediment concentration of a giant submarine gravity flow |
title_sort | reconstructing the sediment concentration of a giant submarine gravity flow |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6033887/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29976991 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05042-6 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT stevensonchristopherjohn reconstructingthesedimentconcentrationofagiantsubmarinegravityflow AT feldenspeter reconstructingthesedimentconcentrationofagiantsubmarinegravityflow AT georgiopoulouaggeliki reconstructingthesedimentconcentrationofagiantsubmarinegravityflow AT schönkemischa reconstructingthesedimentconcentrationofagiantsubmarinegravityflow AT krastelsebastian reconstructingthesedimentconcentrationofagiantsubmarinegravityflow AT piperdavidjw reconstructingthesedimentconcentrationofagiantsubmarinegravityflow AT lindhorstkatja reconstructingthesedimentconcentrationofagiantsubmarinegravityflow AT mosherdavid reconstructingthesedimentconcentrationofagiantsubmarinegravityflow |