Observations of a hydrothermal plume in a karstic lake

A hydrothermal plume with vertical and horizontal length scales of similar to 18 and similar to 300 m, respectively, develops in a karstic lake. The p lume is generated at the bottom of a basin that contains sediment in suspen sion, which is at a higher temperature than the water immediately above (th e hypolimnion of the lake). The rising convective plume entrains colder hyp olimnetic water and develops upward, until it reaches the base of the seaso nal thermocline, carrying an important amount of sediment particles from th e bottom, which are used as tracers to describe the spatial distribution of the plume. At the level of neutral buoyancy, the plume spreads laterally, as a horizontal baroclinic intrusion.