Experiments on Hydraulic Jumps in Turbidity Currents Near a Canyon-Fan Transition

Abstract

The point at which a submarine canyon debouches on its associated abyssal fan is generally characterized by a drop in channel slope. Turbidity currents of the kind responsible for the genesis of the canyon and fan should display an internal hydraulic jump near the slope transition. No direct field observations of any such jump appear, however, to have been made. Experiments on the nature of the jump and the resulting sedimentary deposits indicate that the thickness of the deposits just downstream of the jump tends to increase as the ratio of bed shear velocity immediately behind the jump to particle fall velocity decreases.