Cross-shore transport of nearshore sediment by river plume frontal pumping
Horner-Devine, Alexander R.; Pietrzak, Julie D.; Souza, Alejandro J.; McKeon, Margaret A.; Meirelles, Saulo; Henriquez, Martijn; Flores, Raúl P.; Rijnsburger, Sabine. 2017 Cross-shore transport of nearshore sediment by river plume frontal pumping. Geophysical Research Letters, 44 (12). 6343-6351. 10.1002/2017GL073378
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AGU Publisher statement: An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. © 2017 American Geophysical Union. Further reproduction or electronic distribution is not permitted doi:10.1002/2017GL073378 Horner-Devine_et_al-2017-Geophysical_Research_Letters.pdf - Published Version Download (922kB) | Preview |
Abstract/Summary
We present a new mechanism for cross-shore transport of fine sediment from the nearshore to the inner shelf resulting from the onshore propagation of river plume fronts. Onshore frontal propagation is observed in moorings and radar images, which show that fronts penetrate onshore through the nearshore and surf zone, almost to the waterline. During frontal passage a two-layer counterrotating velocity field characteristic of tidal straining is immediately set up, generating a net offshore flow beneath the plume. The seaward flow at depth carries with it high suspended sediment concentrations, which appear to have been generated by wave resuspension in the nearshore region. These observations describe a mechanism by which vertical density stratification can drive exchange of material between the nearshore region and the inner shelf. To our knowledge these are the first observations of this frontal pumping mechanism, which is expected to play an important role in sediment transport near river mouths.
Item Type: | Publication - Article |
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Digital Object Identifier (DOI): | 10.1002/2017GL073378 |
ISSN: | 00948276 |
Additional Keywords: | river plume; sediment; surf zone; cross-shore transport; ronts; Rhine |
Date made live: | 22 Aug 2017 09:02 +0 (UTC) |
URI: | https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/517649 |
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