Quantitative analysis of variations in depositional sequence thickness from submarine channel levees

Abstract Thickness variations across‐levee and downchannel in acoustically defined depositional sequences from six submarine channel‐levee systems show consistent and quantifiable patterns. The thickness of depositional sequences perpendicular to the channel trend, i.e. across the levee, decreases exponentially, as characterized by a spatial decay constant, k. Similarly, the thickness of sediment at the levee crest decreases exponentially down the upper reaches of submarine channels and can be characterized by a second spatial decay constant, λ. The inverse of these decay constants has units of length and defines depositional length scales such that k^?1 is a measure of levee width and λ^?1 is a measure of levee length. Quantification of levee architecture in this way allowed investigation of relationships between levee architecture and channel dimensions. It was found that these measures of levee e‐folding width and levee e‐folding length are directly related to channel width and relief. The dimensions of channels and levees are thus intimately related, thereby limiting the range of potential channel‐levee morphologies, regardless of allocyclic forcing. A simple sediment budget model relates the product of the levee e‐folding width and e‐folding length to through‐channel volume discharge. A classification system based on the quantitative downchannel behaviour of levee architecture allows identification of a ‘mid‐channel’ reach, where sediment is passively transferred from the through‐channel flow to the levees as an overspilling flow. Downstream from this reach, the channel gradually looses its control on guiding turbidity currents, and the resulting flow can be considered as an unconfined or spreading flow.     

矿坑水净化处理与利用

本文论述了矿坑水的净化处理方法与工艺流程，主要处理方法有混凝，沉淀，过滤及消毒，不同水质特点应选用不同的处理方法和工艺流程，最后通过实例说明了矿坑水净化处理与利用，具有明显的社会效益，经济效益和环境效益。     

Analysis on the effect of salinity in underwater wireless optical communication

Abstract

This article deals with the effect of salinity variation on underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC). Effect of different concentration of salt on underwater optical communication has been carried out experimentally in terms of received power at different link lengths. Based on the analysis of experimental data, a mathematical model has been proposed to describe the saline water channel. A simulation study is performed for different data rates and link lengths. It is seen that with increased salinity the attenuation is higher and the UWOC system performance degrades with higher data rate and increased link length.     

椒江河口洪季最大浑浊带核部的悬沙分选机制

以实测悬沙粒径、流速、含沙量资料为基础,通过悬沙不同粒级组分、中值粒径以及粒度参数的统计,分析椒江河口最大浑浊带核部悬沙粒径分布变化特性。研究表明,悬沙粒径分选主要受物质来源、潮流动力作用下底部部分物质再悬浮和絮凝沉降3个因素的影响。其中第二个因素起主导作用,大潮期比小潮期显著,第三个因素的作用主要发生在涨落憩前后低流速期,并在表层较近底层的水体明显。     

Environmental impact of fluidized solidified silt casting on surrounding water bodies

Abstract

With the growing demand for underwater refill engineering, the construction technology of implementing fluidized solidification in underwater pouring has recently received increased attention. However, the environmental impact of underwater casting on surrounding water bodies, especially when the silt is polluted, is still unclear. In this study, a simulated underwater pouring test and a static immersion release test were conducted separately to study the quality of the surrounding water during and after pouring. The results showed that fluidized-solidified silt casting could increase the pH of the surrounding water, even after the pouring had stopped, by approximately 1.0 and the turbidity could reach 200 NTU. No diffusion of Zn and Cu into the surrounding water was observed and while Ni and Cr exhibited slight diffusion, this was at a level well below international water quality standard. During construction, reducing the distance from the seafloor to the bottom of the pouring catheter could reduce the level of pollution. After construction, the use of neutral solidified materials can effectively reduce the pH of the surrounding water and the potential risk of heavy metal dissolution.     

The impact of extreme turbidity events on the nursery function of a temperate European estuary with regulated freshwater inflow

Estuaries are used as nursery grounds by numerous marine species despite being usually subject to strong anthropogenic disturbances. Abundances of marine recruits (fish and crustacean decapods) and their main prey (mysids) were monitored by monthly sampling, from June 1997 to February 2009, in the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir estuary (SW Spain). During that period, unusually high and persistent turbidity events (HPTEs) were observed twice. Both HPTEs started with strong and sudden freshwater discharges after relatively long periods of very low freshwater inflow. Data from this time-series were used to test the hypothesis that HPTEs may negatively impact the nursery function of estuaries either by decreasing prey availability or by decreasing survival/arrival of marine recruits. During HPTEs, the commonest mysid (Mesopodopsis slabberi), a key species in the estuarine food web, showed a significant decrease in abundance. Likewise, some marine recruits that prey on M. slabberi and whose peaks of abundance within the estuary occur in summer–autumn (Engraulis encrasicolus and Pomadasys incisus) were less abundant during HPTEs. It is also suggested that HPTEs might have triggered a shift in the distribution of the most euryhaline prey (Neomysis integer) and predator (Dicentrarchus punctatus and Crangon crangon) species, towards more saline waters. This could have contributed to an increase in the inter-specific competition (for food/habitat) within the estuarine nursery area. The results discussed in this study call attention to the need to reduce as much as possible the anthropogenic pressures that may stimulate the occurrence of high and persistent turbidity events (HPTEs) in order to preserve the nursery function of temperate estuaries.     

Facies of slurry-flow deposits, Britannia Formation (Lower Cretaceous), North Sea: implications for flow evolution and deposit geometry

ABSTRACT Mud‐rich sandstone beds in the Lower Cretaceous Britannia Formation, UK North Sea, were deposited by sediment flows transitional between debris flows and turbidity currents, termed slurry flows. Much of the mud in these flows was transported as sand‐ and silt‐sized grains that were approximately hydraulically equivalent to suspended quartz and feldspar. In the eastern Britannia Field, individual slurry beds are continuous over long distances, and abundant core makes it possible to document facies changes across the field. Most beds display regular areal grain‐size changes. In this study, fining trends, especially in the size of the largest grains, are used to estimate palaeoflow and palaeoslope directions. In the middle part of the Britannia Formation, stratigraphic zones 40 and 45, slurry flows moved from south‐west and south towards the north‐east and north. Most zone 45 beds lens out before reaching the northern edge of the field, apparently by wedging out against the northern basin slope. Zone 40 and 45 beds show downflow facies transitions from low‐mud‐content, dish‐structured and wispy‐laminated sandstone to high‐mud‐content banded units. In zone 50, at the top of the formation, flows moved from north to south or north‐west to south‐east, and their deposits show transitions from proximal mud‐rich banded and mixed slurried beds to more distal lower‐mud‐content banded and wispy‐laminated units. The contrasting facies trends in zones 40 and 45 and zone 50 may reflect differing grain‐size relationships between quartz and feldspar grains and mud particles in the depositing flows. In zones 40 and 45, quartz grains average 0·30–0·32 mm in diameter, ≈ 0·10 mm coarser than in zone 50. The medium‐grained quartz in zones 40 and 45 flows may have been slightly coarser than the associated mud grains, resulting in the preferential deposition of quartz in proximal areas and downslope enrichment of the flows in mud. In zone 50 flows, mud was probably slightly coarser than the associated fine‐grained quartz, resulting in early mud sedimentation and enrichment of the distal flows in fine‐grained quartz and feldspar. Mud particles in all flows may have had an effective grain size of ≈ 0·25 mm. Both mud content and suspended‐load fallout rate played key roles in the sedimentation of Britannia slurry flows and structuring of the resulting deposits. During deposition of zones 40 and 45, the area of the eastern Britannia Field in block 16/26 may have been a locally enclosed subbasin within which the depositing slurry flows were locally ponded. Slurry beds in the eastern Britannia Field are ‘lumpy’ sheet‐like bodies that show facies changes but little additional complexity. There is no thin‐bedded facies that might represent waning flows analogous to low‐density turbidity currents. The dominance of laminar, cohesion‐dominated shear layers during sedimentation prevented most bed erosion, and the deposystem lacked channel, levee and overbank facies that commonly make up turbidity current‐dominated systems. Britannia slurry flows, although turbulent and capable of size‐fractionating even fine‐grained sediments, left sand bodies with geometries and facies more like those deposited by poorly differentiated laminar debris flows.     

Beds comprising debrite sandwiched within co-genetic turbidite: origin and widespread occurrence in distal depositional environments

Co‐genetic debrite–turbidite beds occur in a variety of modern and ancient turbidite systems. Their basic character is distinctive. An ungraded muddy sandstone interval is encased within mud‐poor graded sandstone, siltstone and mudstone. The muddy sandstone interval preserves evidence of en masse deposition and is thus termed a debrite. The mud‐poor sandstone, siltstone and mudstone show features indicating progressive layer‐by‐layer deposition and are thus called a turbidite. Palaeocurrent indicators, ubiquitous stratigraphic association and the position of hemipelagic intervals demonstrate that debrite and enclosing turbidite originate in the same event. Detailed field observations are presented for co‐genetic debrite–turbidite beds in three widespread sequences of variable age: the Miocene Marnoso Arenacea Formation in the Italian Apennines; the Silurian Aberystwyth Grits in Wales; and Quaternary deposits of the Agadir Basin, offshore Morocco. Deposition of these sequences occurred in similar unchannellized basin‐plain settings. Co‐genetic debrite–turbidite beds were deposited from longitudinally segregated flow events, comprising both debris flow and forerunning turbidity current. It is most likely that the debris flow was generated by relatively shallow (few tens of centimetres) erosion of mud‐rich sea‐floor sediment. Changes in the settling behaviour of sand grains from a muddy fluid as flows decelerated may also have contributed to debrite deposition. The association with distal settings results from the ubiquitous presence of muddy deposits in such locations, which may be eroded and disaggregated to form a cohesive debris flow. Debrite intervals may be extensive (> 26 × 10 km in the Marnoso Arenacea Formation) and are not restricted to basin margins. Such long debris flow run‐out on low‐gradient sea floor (< 0·1°) may simply be due to low yield strength (? 50 Pa) of the debris–water mixture. This study emphasizes that multiple flow types, and transformations between flow types, can occur within the distal parts of submarine flow events.     

夏季台湾浅滩周边水域悬浮物质浊度和叶绿素a荧光分布特征

2004年7～8月在台湾浅滩周边水域进行了两个断面的水体悬浮物浊度、叶绿素a荧光调查,通过对该区域悬浮物质浊度、叶绿素a荧光的夏季分布变化特征研究,结合水文相关要素分析,初步揭示了区域海洋沉积和再悬浮过程对悬浮体浊度、叶绿素a荧光分布的影响。指出悬浮物质浊度在近岸与陆架外缘主要受再悬浮作用影响,而浅滩区再悬浮作用不明显：在陆架外缘区浮游植物的聚集作用对浊度有一定的贡献作用,而近岸区则不明显。     

鸭绿江洪季的河口最大混浊带

对 1 994年 8月在鸭绿江河口的水文和悬浮泥沙的观测资料进行分析。结果表明 ,在洪季鸭绿江河口的最大混浊带 ,出现在第一个河口锋面内侧。它的核心处盐度小于 1 ,从上游带入河口的细颗粒泥沙多数被河口第一锋面截留 ,还有一部分上游来沙穿过该锋面 ,聚集在河口第一和第二锋面之间。垂向密度环流作用和絮凝作用在鸭绿江洪季最大混浊带的维持过程中起着主导作用