Down by the river

Abstract

As part of the Ocean Margins LINK program, a team of scientists at the University of Leeds showed that flow in seafloor channels is dramatically and unexpectedly different, with the flow spiralling in the opposite direction to the flow of water in rivers. The team built a meandering channel out of fiberglass, to fit into a large, two-meter-square tank. They filled the tank with water and pumped a dense salt-water flow into the channel to simulate the flow of muddy water on the seafloor. They measured flow velocities using equipment with probes like underwater speed cameras that measure the speed of tiny particles within the flow. Results show that in seafloor channels, the spiralling of flow moved in the opposite direction to that in rivers.