Behaviour of a puff of resuspended sediment: a conceptual model

✍ Scribed by J.C. Brun-Cottan; S. Guillou; Z.H. Li

• Book ID: 104156862
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 782 KB
• Volume: 167
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0025-3227
• DOI: 10.1016/s0025-3227(00)00027-x

✦ Synopsis

The particulate matter concentration above the seabed is usually assumed to decrease with height, following an exponential or Rouse profile. Many particulate matter concentration profiles with a peak were found on the North Mediterranean bottom water at a few tens of metres above the bottom. A particle size signal at the same altitude was found in this area and on the New York Bight shelf. It is assumed that this unexpected shape is due to a cloud of resuspended cohesive sediments originating from an impulse resuspension process. A simplified three-dimensional numerical model is proposed to describe the behaviour of resuspended particulate matter that originates from a sediment impulse vertically injected in the bottom water. This model reproduces the concentration profile shape observed, and it gives indications concerning the length and time characteristics of such a cloud, depending on the water velocity and bottom boundary layer properties.