Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Direct monitoring reveals initiation of turbidity currents from extremely dilute river plumes

Hage, Sophie; Cartigny, Matthieu J.B.; Sumner, Esther J.; Clare, Michael A.; Hughes Clarke, John E.; Talling, Peter J.; Lintern, D. Gwyn; Simmons, Stephen M.; Silva Jacinto, Ricardo; Vellinga, Age J.; Allin, Joshua R.; Azpiroz‐Zabala, Maria; Gales, Jenny A.; Hizzett, Jamie L.; Hunt, James E.; Mozzato, Alessandro; Parsons, Daniel R.; Pope, Ed L.; Stacey, Cooper D.; Symons, William O.; Vardy, Mark E.; Watts, Camilla

Direct monitoring reveals initiation of turbidity currents from extremely dilute river plumes Thumbnail


Authors

Sophie Hage

Esther J. Sumner

Michael A. Clare

John E. Hughes Clarke

D. Gwyn Lintern

Stephen M. Simmons

Ricardo Silva Jacinto

Age J. Vellinga

Joshua R. Allin

Maria Azpiroz‐Zabala

Jenny A. Gales

Jamie L. Hizzett

James E. Hunt

Alessandro Mozzato

Daniel R. Parsons

Cooper D. Stacey

William O. Symons

Mark E. Vardy

Camilla Watts



Abstract

Rivers (on land) and turbidity currents (in the ocean) are the most important sediment transport processes on Earth. Yet, how rivers generate turbidity currents as they enter the coastal ocean remains poorly understood. The current paradigm, based on laboratory experiments, is that turbidity currents are triggered when river plumes exceed a threshold sediment concentration of ~1 kg.m‐3. Here we present direct observations of an exceptionally dilute river‐plume, with sediment concentrations one order of magnitude below this threshold (0.07 kg.m‐3), which generated a fast (1.5 m.s‐1), erosive, short‐lived (6 min) turbidity current. However, no turbidity current occurred during subsequent river‐plumes. We infer that turbidity currents are generated when fine‐sediment, accumulating in a tidal turbidity maximum, is released during spring tide. This means that very dilute river‐plumes can generate turbidity currents more frequently and in a wider range of locations, than previously thought.

Citation

Hage, S., Cartigny, M. J., Sumner, E. J., Clare, M. A., Hughes Clarke, J. E., Talling, P. J., …Watts, C. (2019). Direct monitoring reveals initiation of turbidity currents from extremely dilute river plumes. Geophysical Research Letters, 46(20), 11310-11320. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019gl084526

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 2, 2019
Online Publication Date Sep 13, 2019
Publication Date Oct 28, 2019
Deposit Date Oct 10, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Geophysical Research Letters
Print ISSN 0094-8276
Electronic ISSN 1944-8007
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 46
Issue 20
Pages 11310-11320
DOI https://doi.org/10.1029/2019gl084526

Files


Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (15.6 Mb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © 2019. The Authors.
This is an open access article under the
terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.






You might also like



Downloadable Citations