Experiments on density and turbidity currents II

Abstract

The basic theory for the average velocity of uniform flow of a density current is now well established. The resistance at the bottom may be estimated from reasonable assumptions regarding the roughness of the bottom and the size of the current. The principal problem remaining is quantitative estimation of the resistance of the upper (fluid) interface. A review of the literature suggests that this resistance increases with increase in Froude number and decreases with increase in Reynolds number, and the writer's experiments support this hypothesis. As many turbidity currents are large scale and flow over low slopes of relatively small roughness it seems probable that both the bottom resistance and the resistance at the upper interface are small.