The formation of mud patches by non-linear diffusion |
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| Authors: | Thomas L Clarke Donald JP Swift |
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| Institution: | 1. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratories, 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149, U.S.A.;2. Atlantic Richfield Oil and Gas Company, P.O. Box 2819, Dallas, TX 75221, U.S.A. |
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| Abstract: | Deposits of mud on an otherwise sandy continental shelf floor commonly occur in the form of patches a few hundred meters in size. A model for the formation of these patches is proposed that is based on a resuspension mechanism that is a non-linear function of the percentage of fines in the surficial sediment. A diffusion equation governing the time evolution of the percentage fines is derived which for a certain range of fine sediment concentrations becomes unstable. Numerical solution of this equation shows that the spatial distribution of fine sediment breaks into two components in a manner qualitatively similar to observed mud patches. |
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