The simulator models a turbidity current triggered on a submarine slope, letting learners watch sediment-laden water accelerate downslope, decelerate as it reaches the flat basin floor, and deposit its sediment load in real time as the five graded Bouma divisions build up in vertical order, mirroring the actual physics of settling velocity and flow deceleration.
Choose a trigger mechanism such as an earthquake, storm wave loading, or slope oversteepening, then set the initial sediment concentration and grain size mix carried by the flow. Start the simulation to watch the turbidity current move downslope and decelerate, then observe the vertical stack of Ta through Te divisions form in the deposit panel as the flow loses energy, and compare the resulting bed profile against a normal, slowly accumulated background mud layer shown alongside it.
Controls include trigger type (earthquake, storm loading, slope oversteepening), initial sediment concentration, grain size distribution, slope angle, and a play/pause/reset control for the flow and deposition animation, with a toggle to overlay a labeled Ta-Te division key on the resulting deposit.
In 1929 a magnitude 7.2 earthquake off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland triggered a turbidity current so powerful that it snapped a series of transatlantic telegraph cables one after another as it swept across the seafloor, and because each cable break was independently time-stamped, scientists were later able to calculate that the current reached speeds of roughly sixty-eight kilometers per hour, among the first direct evidence that such currents were real and not just a theoretical idea.
The simulator models a turbidity current triggered on a submarine slope, letting learners watch sediment-laden water accelerate downslope, decelerate as it reaches the flat basin floor, and deposit its sediment load in real time as the five graded Bouma divisions build up in vertical order, mirroring the actual physics of settling velocity and flow deceleration.
The simulator models a turbidity current triggered on a submarine slope, letting learners watch sediment-laden water accelerate downslope, decelerate as it reaches the flat basin floor, and deposit its sediment load in real time as the five graded Bouma divisions build up in vertical order, mirroring the actual physics of settling velocity and flow deceleration.
Choose a trigger mechanism such as an earthquake, storm wave loading, or slope oversteepening, then set the initial sediment concentration and grain size mix carried by the flow. Start the simulation to watch the turbidity current move downslope and decelerate, then observe the vertical stack of Ta through Te divisions form in the deposit panel as the flow loses energy, and compare the resulting bed profile against a normal, slowly accumulated background mud layer shown alongside it.
In 1929 a magnitude 7.2 earthquake off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland triggered a turbidity current so powerful that it snapped a series of transatlantic telegraph cables one after another as it swept across the seafloor, and because each cable break was independently time-stamped, scientists were later able to calculate that the current reached speeds of roughly sixty-eight kilometers per hour, among the first direct evidence that such currents were real and not just a theoretical idea.