Modeling the sorting of sediments on delta tops

Sediment sorting in fluvial rivers produces great variation in the grain-size of deposit over the length of a river. Knowledge of the pattern of sediment deposition may help to shed light on the processes that sort by grain size. A simple geometric model was developed to predict the location of the transition between coarse and fine sediment in a bimodal sediment distribution and tested against flume-created deposits with a variety of flow and depositional conditions. The models agreed well with the overall form of plane-bed clinoform deposits but not with rippled-bed clinoform deposits, thus a new model for predicting transitions in rippled-bed deposits is needed.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Baumgardner, Sarah E

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John B. Southard.

• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114361

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/114361