PREDICTING THE GEOMETRY OF CHANNELIZED DEEP-SEA TURBIDITES

Analytical relationships between the dynamic properties of a deposit-f orming turbidity current propagating across a sea floor with small slo pe and the geometry of the resulting deposit have been confirmed exper imentally for a wide range of particle sizes, initial concentrations, and volumes of the driving suspension. These simple expressions provid e a basis for inferring the dynamics of natural flows from their depos its. We surmise that the turbidity current responsible for depositing the Black Shell turbidite in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean had an in itial sediment concentration on the order of 100 g of silt per litre a nd a volume on the order of 1000 km3.