Two papers on mud transport from our group came out over the past few months. The first is by Duc Tran, where he shows that suspended quartz silt grains can become bound within clay flocs. Duc quantifies the amount of silt captured in the flocs under different ratios of clay and silt in suspension. Furthermore he shows that bound silt does not have any significant impact on the floc size, but that it can change the overall floc density and settling velocity. The second paper was one by former student Mohamad Rouhnia. In the experimental study, Mohamad examines the removal of sediment from a buoyant freshwater clay suspension overriding clear saltwater. In particular, he compares the settling rates due to individual particle settling with other mechanisms such as turbulent diffusion and interface leaking.
Tran, D. and Strom, K. (2017). Suspended clays and silts: Are they independent or dependent fractions when it comes to settling in a turbulent suspension? Continental Shelf Research, 138, 81-94, doi: 10.1016/j.csr.2017.02.011
Rouhnia, M. and Strom, K. (2017). Sedimentation from buoyant muddy plumes in the presence of interface mixing: An experimental study. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. 122, doi: 10.1002/2016JC012053