The Hebble report : being the proceedings of the Workshop on a High Energy Benthic Boundary Layer Experiment held at the Keystone Center for Continuing Education, Keystone, Colorado, March 13-17, 1978

Abstract

Abstract : A workshop was held on March 13-17, 1978 on a High Energy Benthic Boundary Layer Experiment. The meeting followed recognition of the importance of high speed currents at the deep ocean bed in eroding, transporting and depositing sediments and in producing bedforms. The importance of the turbulence and turbulent mixing processes in these regions was also emphasized. The workshop proposed an experiment with three main phases, detailed survey and site selection short (3-day), and long (6-month) experimental deployment of instrument packages designed to recover current, turbulence, optical, acoustic and photographic data. The site survey phase would involve not only hydrographic, echosounding and deep-tow survey but also recovery of undisturbed bottom samples and investigation of their properties in laboratory flumes. The short experiments would run at a high rate of data acquisition and get data on short term fluctuations of the floor and bed. The long experiments would have slower rates of data acquisition and employ in-situ processing and compaction of information from sensors. A cyclosonde profiling the lowermost 300 m of the water column with CTD, velocity and optical probes would be an essential feature. This and other aspects of the proposed program would require considerable engineering work in development of sea-bed instrument arrays. (Author)