Travis Swanson

Ex-Stream: A MATLAB program for calculating fluid flux through sediment-water interfaces based on steady and transient temperature profiles

Temperature is a useful environmental tracer for quantifying movement and exchange of water and heat through and near sediment-water interfaces (SWI). Heat tracing involves analyzing temperature time series or profiles from temperature probes deployed in sediments. Ex-Stream is a MATLAB program that brings together two transient and two steady one-dimensional coupled heat and fluid flux analytical models. The program includes a graphical user interface, a detailed user manual, and postprocessing capabilities that enable users to extract fluid fluxes from time-series temperature observations. Program output is written to comma-separated values files, displayed within the MATLAB command window, and may be optionally plotted. The models that are integrated into Ex-Stream can be run collectively, allowing for direct comparison, or individually.

A Surface Model for Aeolian Dune Topography

A surface model for aeolian bedform topography is adapted from a surface model of subaqueous bedform topography. The aeolian bedform surface model is developed using a uniform grid with a cell-centered finite volume approximation of the sediment continuity equation. The resulting modeling framework approximates the dynamic motions of aeolian bedform topography driven by bedform field boundary conditions. The numerical model is applied to simulate bedforms growing from unimodal and bimodal transport regimes from both a fixed elevation (sediment source area) and within a domain with fully periodic boundary conditions. The rates at which modeled aeolian bedforms grow and morphologically mature are sensitive to the chosen boundary conditions. Video files of model simulations and source code for the presented aeolian bedform surface modeling framework are available in supplemental materials. The aeolian bedform surface model code is malleable and readily modified for exploratory study of dynamic bedform topography that inherits morphological traits from aeolian bedform field boundary conditions.