What is "turbidity current"

n. (context geology English) A fast-flowing downhill current (of air or water) that carries silt

A turbidity current is most typically an underwater current of usually rapidly moving, sediment-laden water moving down a slope. Turbidity currents can also occur in other fluids besides water. In the most typical case of oceanic turbidity currents, sediment laden waters situated over sloping ground flow down-hill because they have a higher density than the adjacent waters. The driving force behind a turbidity current is gravity acting on the high density of the sediments temporarily suspended within a fluid. These semi-suspended solids make the average density of the sediment bearing water greater than that of the surrounding, undisturbed water. As such currents flow, they often have a "snow-balling-effect", as they stir up the ground over which they flow, and gather even more sedimentary particles in their current. Their passage leave the ground over which they flow scoured and eroded. Once an oceanic turbidity current reaches the calmer waters of the flatter area of the abyssal plain (main oceanic floor), the particles borne by the current settle out of the water column. The sedimentary deposit of a turbidity current is called a turbidite.

Examples of turbidity currents involving other fluid mediums besides liquid water include: avalanches (snow, rocks), lahars (volcanic), pyroclastic flows (volcanic), and lava flows (volcanic). Seafloor turbidity currents are often the result of sediment-laden river outflows, and can sometimes result from earthquakes, slumping and other soil disturbances. They are characterized by a well-defined advance-front, also known as the current's head, and are followed by the current's main body. In terms of the more often observed and more familiar above sea-level phenomenon, they somewhat resemble flash floods.

Turbidity currents can sometimes result from submarine seismic instability, which is common with steep underwater slopes, and especially with submarine trench slopes of convergent plate margins, continental slopes and submarine canyons of passive margins.

With an increasing continental shelf slope, current velocity increases, as the velocity of the flow increases, turbulence increases, and the current draws up more sediment. The increase in sediment also adds to the density of the current, and thus its velocity even further.

Turbidity currents are traditionally defined as those sediment gravity flows in which sediment is suspended by fluid turbulence. However, the term 'turbidity current' was adopted to describe a natural phenomenon whose exact nature is often unclear. The turbulence within a turbidity current is not always the support mechanism that keeps the sediment in suspension; however it is probable that turbulence is the primary or sole grain support mechanism in dilute currents (<3%). Definitions are further complicated by an incomplete understanding of the turbulence structure within turbidity currents, and the confusion between the terms turbulent (i.e. disturbed by eddies) and turbid (i.e. opaque with sediment). Kneller & Buckee, 2000 define a suspension current as 'flow induced by the action of gravity upon a turbid mixture of fluid and (suspended) sediment, by virtue of the density difference between the mixture and the ambient fluid'. A turbidity current is a suspension current in which the interstitial fluid is a liquid (generally water); a pyroclastic current is one in which the interstitial fluid is gas.