Particle-Bearing Currents in Uniform Density and Two-Layer Fluids

B.R. Sutherland, M.K. Gingras, C. Knudson, L. Steverango and C. Surma

Lock-release gravity current experiments are performed to examine the evolution of a particle bearing flow that propagates either in a uniform-density fluid or in a two-layer fluid. In all cases, the current is composed of fresh water plus micrometer-scale particles, the ambient fluid is saline, and the current advances initially either over the surface as a hypopycnal current or at the interface of the two-layer fluid as a mesopycnal current. In most cases the tank is tilted so that the ambient fluid becomes deeper with distance from the lock. For hypopycnal currents advancing in a uniform density fluid, the current typically slows as particles rain out of the current carrying interstitial fluid with them. Meanwhile, rather than settling on the sloping bottom of the tank, the particles form a hyperpycnal (turbidity) current that advances until enough particles rain out that the relatively less dense interstitial fluid rises once more to the surface, carrying some particles back upward. When a hypopycnal current runs over the surface of a two-layer fluid, the particles that rain out temporarily halt their descent as they reach the interface, eventually passing through it and again forming a hyperpycnal current. Dramatically, a mesopycnal current in a two layer fluid first advances along the interface and then reverses direction as particles rain out below and fresh interstitial fluid rises above.