Sediment transport by buoyancy-driven flows in the ocean

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Event details

Date 21.06.2016
Hour 11:1512:15
Speaker Prof. Ben Kneller, University of Aberdeen
Location
Category Conferences - Seminars
Two main types of buoyancy-driven flows occur in the oceans: river plumes, driven by the buoyancy of fresh water over seawater, responsible for the dispersal of fine sediment onto continental margins; and turbidity currents which are negatively buoyant, driven by the presence of suspended sediment, and can carry sediment far into the ocean basins to form submarine fans, which are the largest sediment accumulations on the Earth. Both of these types of flow are profoundly influenced by the stability of their boundaries with the ambient fluid (expressed as a gradient Richardson number) due to the interplay between the velocity gradient and density gradient.

Bio: Ben Kneller obtained his BSc in geology at University of Sheffield, and his PhD from University of Aberdeen. He held post-doctoral positions at Leeds University and Liverpool University before obtaining a faculty position at Leeds, where he worked on laboratory investigations of gravity currents as well as field geology on deep-water depositional systems. He moved to University of California at Santa Barbara in 2000, working alongside numerical modellers in Mechanical Engineering, before returning to Aberdeen in 2004. Since 1992 he has run industry-funded research groups specializing in deep-water systems and processes. He maintains a strong interest in geological fieldwork.

Practical information

  • General public
  • Free

Organizer

  • Mário J. Franca, Laboratoire de Constructions Hydrauliques

Tags

density currents turbidity currents sediment transport

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