A new model for marine density-turbidity currents with criteria for ignition

Abstract

Abstract We discuss the hydrodynamic stability properties of a one-dimensional quasi-steady marine current, driven by a density excess caused by low temperature or high salinity, and flowing over a regular slope, taking bottom-erosion phenomena into consideration. The term density-turbidity current is used here for a thermohaline density current, with that density increased by entrained sediment. Thermohaline currents are of fundamental importance with regard to the Earth's climate, and the same must apply to density-turbidity currents. To simplify this complex problem, we schematize the flow as a thin turbulent quasisteady current, with gravitational and frictional forces in approximate equilibrium; the effects of small-scale perturbations, and of interaction with the bottom sediment, are then schematised by assuming a heuristic model of sediment evolution. Indeed, as in recent work by Caserta et al. (1990), we postulate that density variation due to bottom erosion or deposition is a function only of the...