Bottom Boundary Layer Processes Associated with Fine Sediment Accumulation: Application to STRATAFORM.

摘要

LONG-TERM GOAL. The global objective of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) involvement in the STRATAFORM program is to improve understanding of the spatially and temporally varying mechanisms that suspend, transport, and deposit sediment on the continental shelf in the vicinity of the mouth of the Eel River specifically and generally on continental shelves that are accumulating fine sediment. SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES. Specific objectives of VIMS involvement in STRATAFORM Phase I and II were to observationally characterize the spatial and temporal variability of bed roughness, bed stress, sediment resuspension and sediment flux at multiple sites on the Eel River shelf. Over the past year (October 1998-October 1999) our primary aim has been to synthesize our field results with other STRATAFORM investigators in order to help answer four of the six essential questions identified at the 1998 STRATAFORM Keystone meeting for Phase III of the program's shelf component: (1) How is sediment that is lost from the plume moved seaward to the mid-shelf mud deposit? (2) What are the magnitudes and mechanisms of storm- and flood generated sediment fluxes in the along-shelf direction? (3) How do flood deposits evolve in response to physical and biological reworking? (4) What is the "skill" of Eel shelf models in predicting relevant processes in other fine grained depositional systems? .