Turbidity currents dominate sediment transfer into the deep ocean, and can damage critical seabed infrastructure. It is commonly inferred that powerful turbidity are triggered by major external events, such as storms, river floods, or earthquakes. However, basic models for current triggering remain poorly tested, with few studies accurately recording precise flow timing. Here, we analyse most d...

We explore the properties of turbidity currents down a slope into a stratified saline ambient through highly resolved direct Navier-Stokes simulations, and compare our results to experimental results and analytical scaling arguments. Turbidity currents are buoyancy-driven flows where a denser fluid, charged with suspended particles, propagates through a lighter fluid under the effect of gravity...

An idealised model is presented and analysed to gain more fundamental understanding about the dynamics of phytoplankton blooms in well-mixed, suspended sediment dominated estuaries. The model describes the behaviour of subtidal currents, suspended sediments, nutrients and phytoplankton in a channel geometry. The initial growth of phytoplankton and its spatial distribution is calculated by solvi...

One of the major unresolved issues of the Late Pleistocene catastrophic-flood events in the northwestern United States (e.g., from glacial Lake Missoula) has been what happened when the flood discharge reached the ocean. This study compiles available 3.5-kHz high-resolution and airgun seismic reflection data, long-range sidescan sonar images, and sediment core data to define the distribution of...

In many areas of the North American mid-Atlantic coast, seagrass beds are either in decline or have disappeared due, in part, to high turbidity that reduces the light reaching the plant surface. Because of this reduction in the areal extent of seagrass beds there has been a concomitant diminishment in dampening of water movement (waves and currents) and sediment stabilization. Due to ongoing de...

Submarine channel–levee systems are among the largest sedimentary structures on the ocean floor. These channels have a sinuous pattern and are the main conduits for turbidity currents to transport sediment to the deep ocean. Recent observations have shown that their sinuosity decreases strongly with latitude, with high-latitude channels being much straighter than similar channels near the Equat...