Key Future Directions For Research On Turbidity Currents and Their Deposits

Turbidity currents, and other types of submarine sediment density flow, redistribute more sediment across the surface of the Earth than any other sediment flow process, yet their sediment concentratio…

February 1, 2015 · P. J. Talling, J. Allin, D. A. Armitage, R. W. C. Arnott, M. J. B. Cartigny, M. A. Clare, F. Felletti, J. A. Covault, S. Girardclos, E. Hansen, P. R. Hill, R. N. Hiscott, A. J. Hogg, J. H. Clarke, Z. R. Jobe, G. Malgesini, A. Mozzato, H. Naruse, S. Parkinson, F. J. Peel, D. J. W. Piper, E. Pope, G. Postma, P. Rowley, A. Sguazzini, C. J. Stevenson, E. J. Sumner, Z. Sylvester, C. Watts, J. Xu

Detecting baffle mudstones using microfossils: an integrated working example from the Cardamom Field, Block 427 Garden Banks, Gulf of Mexico

Sedimentological observations, planktonic microfossil data, terrigenous index proxy data, benthic morphogroup analyses, pressure analyses and geochemical fingerprinting were integrated in order to ass…

November 1, 2014 · S.-J. Jackett, Z. R. Jobe, B. P. Lutz, R. O. B. P. Da Gama, Z. Sylvester, I. M. Prince, H. L. Albrecht, T. Prasad

Rivers through time, as seen in Landsat images

Thanks to the Landsat program and Google Earth Engine, it is possible now to explore how the surface of the Earth has been changing through the last thirty years or so. Besides the obvious issues of interest, like changes in vegetation, the spread of cities, and the melting of glaciers, it is also possible to look at how rivers change their courses through time. You have probably already seen the images of the migrating Ucayali River in Peru, for example here. This river is changing its course with an impressive speed; many – probably most – other rivers don’t show much obvious change during the same 30-year period. What determines the meander migration rate of rivers is an interesting question in fluvial geomorphology. ...

March 16, 2014 · Zoltán Sylvester

Exploring grain settling with Python

Grain settling is one of the most important problems in sedimentology (and therefore sedimentary geology), as neither sediment transport nor deposition can be understood and modeled without knowing what is the settling velocity of a particle of a certain grain size. Very small grains, when submerged in water, have a mass small enough that they reach a terminal velocity before any turbulence develops. This is true for clay- and silt-sized particles settling in water, and for these grain size classes Stokes’ Law can be used to calculate the settling velocity: ...

August 9, 2013 · Zoltán Sylvester

Global (latitudinal) variation in submarine channel sinuosity: Comment

Peakall et al. (2012) propose that submarine channel sinuosity correlates with latitude, and conclude that this correlation results from modification of the turbidity flow field by the Coriolis force….

May 1, 2013 · Z. Sylvester, C. Pirmez, A. Cantelli, Z. R. Jobe

3-D Numerical Simulation of Turbidity Currents in Submarine Canyons off the Niger Delta

A three-dimensional unsteady numerical model is applied to simulate turbidity currents in deep submarine canyons located on the continental slope of the Niger Delta. In one of the few attempts to comp…

July 1, 2012 · S. A. El-Gawad, C. Pirmez, A. Cantelli, D. Minisini, Z. Sylvester, J. Imran