David C. J. D. Hoyal

Predicting delta avulsions: Implications for coastal wetland restoration

River deltas create new wetlands through a continuous cycle of delta lobe extension, avulsion, and abandonment, but the mechanics and timing of this cycle are poorly understood. Here we use physical experiments to quantitatively define one type of cycle for river-dominated deltas. The cycle begins as a distributary channel and its river mouth bar prograde basinward. Eventually the mouth bar reaches a critical size and stops prograding. The stagnated mouth bar triggers a wave of bed aggradation that moves upstream and increases overbank flows and bed shear stresses on the levees. An avulsion occurs as a time-dependent failure of the levee, where the largest average bed shear stress has been applied for the longest time (R 2 = 0.93). These results provide a guide for predicting the growth of intradelta lobes, which can be used to engineer the creation of new wetlands within the delta channel network and improve stratigraphic models of deltas.

Settling-driven convection: A mechanism of sedimentation from stratified fluids

Convection driven by sediment particles may play an important role in sedimentation from the base of buoyant (hypopycnal) plumes, for example, fluvial plumes in stratified estuaries and lakes, black smokers on the ocean floor, volcanic clouds, and coastal currents. In addition to the well-known double-diffusive convection mechanism, another mode of convective instability development is by settling across the density interface. We performed laboratory experiments to investigate this fingering/convective instability mechanism and its effect on particle distribution in the water column and deposition at the bed. A simple theoretical model of finger formation at a fluid density interface is developed based on an analogy with thermal/plume formation at a flat heated plate. This model, which involves a thickening interface layer that becomes gravitationally unstable relative to the ambient fluid, is in good agreement with measurements of finger size and instability wavelength from visualization experiments. Since fingering at the density interface drives larger-scale convection in the fluid below, a mass balance model of the lower layer, assuming strong mixing (i.e., uniform sediment concentration) is successfully applied to predict sediment concentration in the water column and deposition at the bed. Strong mixing can be assumed since convective velocities are usually much greater than the particle fall velocities. As convection proceeds, the sediment concentrations in the two layers approach each other and convection will die out. Using the model equations, we develop analytical expressions for the time when convection ceases and the portion of sediment remaining in the water column.

Hydraulic and sediment transport properties of autogenic avulsion cycles on submarine fans with supercritical distributaries

Submarine fans, like other distributive systems, are built by repeated avulsion cycles. However, relative to deltas and alluvial fans, much less is known about avulsions in subaqueous settings. In this study, we ran a set of subaqueous fan experiments to investigate the mechanics associated with autogenic avulsion cycles of self-formed channels and lobe deposits on steep slopes. The experiments used saline density currents with crushed plastic to emulate sustained turbidity currents and bed load transport. We collected detailed hydraulic and bathymetric measurements and made use of a 1-D laterally expanding density current model to better understand different aspects of the avulsion cycle. Our results reveal three major components of the avulsion cycles: (1) distributary channel incision, extension, and stagnation; (2) mouth bar aggradation and hydraulic jump initiation; and (3) hydraulic jump sedimentation and upstream retreat. Interestingly, in all but one experiment, the avulsion cycles led to fans that remained perched above the basin slope break. Experimental data and hydraulic theory were used to unravel actual mechanics associated with cycles. We found that channels stopped extending into the basin due to a decay in sediment transport capacity relative to sediment supply and that the reduction in capacity was primarily an outcome of expansion-driven velocity reduction; dilution played a secondary role. Once channel extension ceased, mouth bar deposits aggraded to a thickness approximately equal to the critical step height needed to create a choked flow condition. The choke then initiated a hydraulic jump on the upstream side of the bar. Once formed, the jump detained a majority of the incoming sediment and forced the channel-to-lobe transition upstream, filling the channel with steep backset bedding and capping the entire channel with a mounded lobate deposit. These intrinsic processes repeated through multiple avulsion cycles to build the fan.

Morphodynamics of supercritical turbidity currents in the channel-lobe transition zone

This study aims to resolve process-facies links at both bed and environmental scales for the channel lobe transition zone (CLTZ). Data comes from existing experimental and modern CLTZ studies and from new outcrop studies. The experiments show that the CLTZ architecture of supercritical turbidity currents is complex and different from their counterparts where flows are subcritical throughout. Supercritical CLTZ’s are characterised by erosive channels formed by supercritical turbidity currents, by offset stacked lobes deposited from subcritical turbidity currents and by hydraulic jump related mouth bar deposits and upslope onlapping backfill deposits at the down slope end of the transition zone. Erosive channels and backfill features can be resolved by high resolution seismic data, yet evidence for supercritical flow must come from facies analysis of core data. Outcrop examples of the CLTZ from the Tabernas submarine fan (SE Spain) and the Llorenc del Munt deep-water delta slope (N. Spain) are used to establish such links between seismic scale architecture and facies recognised in cores. The outcrops described here were mapped as transition zone, and show 100 m sized, spoon-shaped scours filled with sediment containing sandy to gravelly backsets up to 4 m in height. Their facies and architecture is indicative of deposition by hydraulic jumps, can be recognized from cores, and is a good proxy for further predicting CLTZ architecture constructed by supercritical turbidity currents.

Direct Numerical Simulation of Transverse Ripples: 1. Pattern Initiation and Bedform Interactions

We present results of coupled direct numerical simulations between flow and a deformable bed in a horizontally periodic, turbulent open channel at a shear Reynolds number of Reτ = 180. The feedback between the temporally and spatially evolving bed and the flow is enforced via the immersed boundary method. Using the near-bed flow field, we provide evidence on the role of locally intense near-bed vortical structures during the early stages of bed formation, from the emergence of quasi-streamwise streaks to the formation of incipient bedform crestlines. Additionally, we take a new look at a number of defect-related bedform interactions, including lateral linking, defect and bedform repulsion, merging, and defect creation, and show that the underlying mechanisms, in these flow-aligned interactions, are very similar to each other. Consequently, the interactions are labeled differently depending on the geometry of interacting structures and the outcome of the interaction. In the companion paper, we compare our results to published experimental data and provide an extensive quantitative analysis of the bed, where we demonstrate the importance of neighboring structures, especially upstream neighbors, on bedform dynamics (growth/decay and speed) and wave coarsening. Video files of bed evolution are available in the supporting information.

Direct Numerical Simulation of Transverse Ripples: 2. Self‐Similarity, Bedform Coarsening, and Effect of Neighboring Structures

Coupled bed-flow direct numerical simulations investigating the early stages of pattern formation and bedform (ripple) interactions were examined in a previous paper (Part 1), making use of the resolved flow field. In this paper (Part 2), we compare our results to published experimental data and provide an extensive quantitative analysis of the bed using spectral analysis and two-point correlations. The effect of the mobile rippled bed on the flow structure and turbulence is investigated locally (at specific streamwise locations) and over the entire computational domain. We show that developing ripples attain a self-similar profile in both the shape and the corresponding bed shear stress. We demonstrate the importance of neighboring structures, especially upstream neighbors, on bedform dynamics in terms of the growth, decay, and speed of ripples. Finally, we examine the defect-free interactions in the later stages of bed evolution, which primarily lead to wave coarsening.

Acoustic imaging of small water‐lain sand deposits

Reduced‐scale physical modeling of depositional systems, like submarine fans, river deltas, and point bars, provides insight into the formation and internal structure of the full‐scale systems which may become economic hydrocarbon reservoirs. Turbid water with controlled sediment concentration and flow velocity is discharged into a 3 m×5 m tank of still water to create deposits up to typically 10 cm thick. These deposits are imaged by a pencil‐beam high‐frequency (7 MHz) acoustic system to capture the evolution of deposit topography and by a broad‐beam lower‐frequency system (150 kHz) to image an internal structure. An x–y positioning system moves the transducer to create detailed 3D images. At 7 MHz, the deposit surface is ‘‘rough,’’ so significant backscattered energy is detected even for non‐normal incidence. This, together with the narrow beamwidth, allows the deposit elevation directly below the sensor to be measured independent of the local slope. The deposit surface is ‘‘smooth’’ to the 150 kHz sys...