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Turbidity Current Bedforms

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Atlas of Bedforms in the Western Mediterranean

Abstract

Turbidity currents in the submarine seascape are what river flows are in terrestrial landscapes. While rivers transport sediment from the mountains through valleys towards the sea, turbidity currents transport sediment from the shallow marine realms through canyons towards the deeper abyssal plains. The large scale architecture of both systems is remarkably similar. Yet, there are some fundamental differences between rivers and turbidity currents, the most fundamental one being their density difference; the density of river water is thousand times denser than its surrounding air, while the density of a turbidity current can never be more than twice as dense as its ambient water. In addition, rivers do not depend on their sediment load to flow, while turbidity (density) currents do need the sediment derived excess density to flow. These physical differences change their morphodynamics on the bedform scale. Present day high-resolution seafloor observations show that turbidity current path ways are covered with bedforms that are fundamentally different from those that occur in river channels. In this chapter we point out these differences and present a 3D bedform stability diagram for turbidites.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton Waterfront Campus, Southampton, UK

    Matthieu J. B. Cartigny

  2. Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    George Postma

Authors
  1. Matthieu J. B. Cartigny
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  2. George Postma
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matthieu J. B. Cartigny .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Marine Geology, Institut de Ciences del Mar (ICM-CSIC) Marine Geology, Barcelona, Spain

    Jorge Guillén

  2. Corazón de María, Instituto Español de Oceanografia, Madrid, Spain

    Juan Acosta

  3. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università "La Sapienza" Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Rome, Italy

    Francesco Latino Chiocci

  4. Geology-Physics, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar (CSIC) Geology-Physics, Barcelona, Spain

    Albert Palanques

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Cartigny, M.J.B., Postma, G. (2017). Turbidity Current Bedforms. In: Guillén, J., Acosta, J., Chiocci, F., Palanques, A. (eds) Atlas of Bedforms in the Western Mediterranean. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33940-5_6

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