Chapter 6.

Flow, bed forms and stratification

under oscillatory and combined currents
The continuum from oscillating to unidirectional flows:
 Waves
Waves on the surface of the oceans are an important process for erosion,
sediment transport and deposition.

A wave propagates across the water surface its passage involves the
rising and falling of the surface.

Most waves are sinusoidal in form and are characterized by their:

Length (L), the horizontal distance from crest to crest.

Height (H), the vertical distance from trough to crest.

Celerity (C), the speed at which the wave travels.

Waves are commonly characterized by their wave period (T), the time
(usually in seconds) that it takes for one wavelength to pass a point on
the water surface:
T = L/C
Waves of a wide range of scale are present in the world oceans.
Wind-generated waves: waves the are produced by winds blowing over
the water surface.

Storm waves: generated by particularly high winds during storms.

Tsunamis: the waves that are generated by underwater landslides,

earthquakes and volcanic explosions.

Tides
Tsunamis

Tsunamis are the second most powerful waves on the oceans.

Generated when ocean waters are displaced:

Underwater earthquakes

Underwater volcanic eruptions

Underwater or coastal landslides
Asteroid/comet impacts

Waves are generated above the disturbance and propagate outward from that
point.
Earthquakes commonly generate tsunamis at the edge of the continental slope
(associated with subduction).

Part of the wave travels over the adjacent shelf reaching shore quickly.

The other part travels across the ocean basin (12-14 hours across the Pacific
Basin).
 Life of a Tsunami
(US Geological Survey)
http://temp.water.usgs.gov/tsunami/basics.html

Earthquake Induced Tsunamis

Initiation

In some cases earthquakes cause displacement of the sea floor which, in

turn, causes displacement of the water surface (i.e., generating a wave).

Many earthquakes are generated at trenches, close to shoreline and on

the open ocean.
Split

The wave radiates outward from the epicentre.

The shoreward part of the wave travels a short distance to the shoreline.

The ocean-ward wave travels at high velocity across the basin.

Wave celerity is proportional to the square root of water depth so that it

travels fastest over the open ocean (up to 6000m depth).
On the open ocean:

Wave length: 160 km

Wave height: commonly up to 0.5 metres on the open ocean.

Celerity: up to 800 km/hr

Amplification

As the wave enters shallow water as it approaches land it becomes

higher and shorter (amplified).
Runup
As the wave propagates towards land the water level rises.

In some cases a trough of the wave reaches land first and the water
recedes from the shoreline and then returns as the wave reaches land.

Runup is the measure of the height of the wave (with respect to sea
level) when it passes over land.
In most cases the wave does not form a “crashing” surf; the water rises
and flows inland as a powerful current.
Following maximum runup the waters flow back offshore and may be
followed by subsequent waves.

The first wave may or may not be the biggest and subsequent waves follow.

Largest recorded Tsunami at landfall:

85 metres in height (at an Island south of Japan)
(Niagara Escarpment is about 50 m high at Brock)
The 1883 eruption of the volcano Krakatoa caused one of the worst
tsunamis of historic time.

Coral blocks up to 600 tons were washed ashore.

This steamship was carried almost 2

km onto the land and dropped 10 m
above sea level.

Along low lying coasts of Java the

waves washed 8 km onshore,
dragging people along with them as
they washed back to sea.
The tsunami was recorded as a small rise in sea level as far away as the
California coast (20 hours after the fourth blast).

An estimated 36,417 people were killed by the tsunami alone.

 The largest witnessed tsunami to
date was in Litya Bay, Alaska.

A landslide created a wave that left

splash marks 1720 feet above
normal water level.
The 2004 Indonesian tsunami was triggered by a 9.0 magnitude
earthquake (energy = 20 Trillion Kg of TNT).
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2004/eq_041226/

World Propogation Animation

 Tsunami arrival times
Time of earthquake: 00:58:53 UTC
Wave height is measured on the ground after the event and exceeded 10
m at land fall in some locations.
Video images of the tsunami
At landfall

Inland
Date Origin Effects Death Toll

June 7, 1692 Puerto Rico Port Royal Jamaica 2000

Trench permanently submerged
Nov. 1, 1755 Atlantic Ocean Lisbon destroyed 60,000
Feb. 20, 1835 Peru-Chile Concepcion, Chile destroyed Not Known
Trench
Aug. 8, 1868 Peru-Chile Ships washed several miles inland 10-15,000
Trench
Aug. 27, 1883 Krakatoa Devastation of East Indies 36,0000
June 15, 1896 Japan trench Swept the east coast of Japan 27,122
with 30.5m waves
March 3, 1933 Japan Trench Wrecked 9,000 houses, 3,000
8,000 ships
May 22, 1960 South-central Damage to Chile and Hawaii 1500, 61 in Hawaii
Chile
Aug. 23, 1976 Celebes Sea SW Philippines devastated 8,000
Dec. 26, 2004 Indonesia Indian Ocean Tsunami 220,272 people were killed,
22,352 are still listed as missing
1,076,350 were displaced
 Megatsunamis

Large tsunamis termed “megatsunamis” have been attributed to

collapse of volcanoes in the past.

Tsunamis were generated by landslides as the side of the volcano Mauna

Loa collapsed into the ocean.
Alika 2 landslide involved 120 cubic miles of debris. (Mt. St. Helen’s
landslide involved less than 1 cubic mile).

The sediments just on top of the debris are 120,000 years old.
On land deposits of coral debris that
is about 120,000 years old have been
found on the side of Kohala volcano.

Deposited by the massive

tsunami that was generated by
the landslide.
The deposits are 4 miles inland
and 1,600 feet above the
position of the shoreline
120,000 year ago.

The island is subsiding do to the

weight added to it by ongoing lava
eruptions.
Such displacement of material to
this elevation would require a
200 metre high wave.

Large landslides that could generate such

tsunamis occur every 100,000 to 200,000
years and put most of the Pacific basin at
risk.
Tsunami Risk from the Canary Islands?

At least a dozen major landslides on volcanoes have taken place over

the past several million years along the Canary Islands.
From: Ward, S.N. and Day, S.,2002, Cumbre Vieja Volcano—Potential collapse and tsunami at La Palma, Canary Islands.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 28, NO. 17, PAGES 3397–3400, 2001
La Palma Island has been identified as a volcanic island that may have
the geological conditions for a major landslide.
If such a landslide takes place up to 500 km3 of debris will enter the
ocean.
 Tsunami Detection Network

Established to provide forewarning of an incoming tsunami in the

eastern Pacific basin.
Goal: to dectect tsunamis as small
as 1 cm in 6000m of water.

Small changes in water pressure are

measured at the Sea floor to detect
changes in water depth.
During “Tide Mode” the
buoys transmit data once per
hour.
If the water level exceeds 1 to
3 cm of the expected level the
buoy goes into “Tsunami
Mode” and transmits data
every minute for three hours.
Following the 2004 tsunami plans have been made to expand the
system across the Pacific and to deploy new buoys in the Atlantic.
Wind-generated waves are the most important process for erosion,
sediment transport and deposition along many of the world’s shorelines.

Waves can move sediment on the bottom out to the edge of the
continental shelf.

Wind speed controls the size and energy of the waves.

With increasing wind speed:
Wave length increases

Wave height increases

Celerity (and wave period) increase.

 Fluid motion under surface waves

With the passage of a wave the water surface rises and falls.
Fluid beneath the wave follows a circular path called a wave orbital.

Wave orbital diameter depends

on the height and length of the
waves and the depth below the
water surface.
Orbitals diameter diminishes with increasing depth beneath the surface.

At a depth of ½ of the wavelength the orbitals are very small and fluid
motion is negligible.

Deep water waves: when water

depth is > ½ of a wavelength of
the surface waves.
The diameter of the orbitals of deep water waves is related to the height
and length of the waves and the depth below the water surface by:
2 y
d o He L

Note that do = H at the

surface where (y=0)

Um is the maximum orbital

velocity and is given by:

 do
Um 
T
A depth of L/2 is referred to as wave base, the depth below which the
waves no longer affect the water column.

Effective wave base is a more

useful concept: the depth below
which the fluid motion due to
waves is not competent to move
sediment on the bed.

Depends on wave and sediment

properties.

Deep water waves never affect

the bed.
Transitional waves when water depth is <½ of a wavelength but >1/20 of
a wavelength (waves with depth < 1/20 of wavelength are shallow water
waves).
Under transitional waves the orbitals become flatter as they approach the
bottom.

At the bottom the

orbitals are flat and
the motion of the
water is back and
forth (oscillating
motion).
Orbital velocities are greatest under the crests and troughs but in
opposite directions.

The motion of sediment on the bed is similarly, back and forth.

The larger height,

length and period the
more powerful the
oscillating currents.
As waves approach a shoreline the water shallows and they change from
deepwater to transitional waves and, finally shallow water waves, when
h < L/20, and involve an onshore flux of water as the waves break and
surge landward.
Waves undergo several changes as they approach the shoreline and
progressively shallower water:

1. Wave height increases and the wave becomes steeper until the height
reaches 75% of the water depth and the wave breaks in an onshore
direction.
2. The rate of decrease in orbital diameter decreases with shallowing

For shallow water waves the orbital diameter is given by: d o 

HT g
2 h
H
and Um  gh
2h
3. The oscillating current becomes increasingly asymmetrical with a
more powerful
onshore stroke.
4. When waves approach at an angle to a shoreline their crests bend to
become more parallel to the shoreline (termed wave refraction).
The more nearshore portion of a wave will propagate more slowly than
the more offshore portion due to the interaction with the bed.

As a result, the more offshore portion of a wave will “catch up” with the
onshore portion so that it approaches the shore with a crest oriented more
parallel to the shoreline.
 The initiation of sediment motion under waves
As for unidirectional flows, the condition for the initiation of sediment
movement depends on:
 Fluid density.
s Density of the particles
D Grain size.
 Boundary shear stress (related to Um and do)

U  do  n
2
The threshold velocity for grain t
C  
movement under waves (Ut) is:     s  gd  d 
Where C=0.21 and n=0.5 if d < 0.5 mm.

Where C=1.45 and n=0.25 if d > 0.5 mm.

Difficult to use on ancient sediments as do must be known.

 Bed forms under waves

Like unidirectional flows, oscillating flows produced by waves result in

an ordered sequence of different bed forms.
Before examining this sequence we will consider the classic wave-
formed bed form “wave ripples” or “symmetrical ripples”.

Characterized by:

1. Symmetrical profile.

2. Peaked crests and broad troughs

(more pronounce peaks in
fine-grained sediment).

3. Straight, bifurcating crests.

The oscillating current acts at right angles to the crest of the ripples.

Ripple crests are parallel to the wave crests so that, on average, they are
aligned parallel to the shoreline at the time of formation.

Ripple crest orientation is useful in determining paleoshoreline

orientations.
 Wave ripples from an intertidal
area (red arrow points to a
bifurcation of the crest).

Note that these ripples have been

modified by the ebb tidal
current.

Interference ripples: the major

symmetrical ripple crests
(trending left to right) have
secondary crests (top to bottom)
superimposed.
This does not necessarily indicate
formation under two sets of water
surface waves.
In the past the traditional view of wave ripples was to think in terms of
wave orbitals residing in the troughs of the ripples.

….one orbital for every ripple trough.

Wave orbitals
Wave ripples

However, examination of wave ripples in natural settings where the

orbital diameter is known suggests that wave ripples are more
complicated.
Plots of ripple spacing () versus the diameter of the wave orbital’s
forming the ripples delineate three ripple types:

Orbital ripples; one orbital per ripple with the

relationship:  = 0.8do

Suborbital ripples: intermediate

between orbital and anorbital
ripples.

Anorbital ripples; where there are

several ripples per orbital and
 << 0.8do
While orbital ripples increase with orbital diameter they have an upper
limit to their spacing that is governed by grain size.

In the case of orbital ripples, the coarser the grain size the larger the
ripples can become.

Beyond this limit the ripples

become suborbital ripples and their
spacing decreases.

Anorbital ripples have shorter

spacing for a given grain size then
orbital and suborbital ripples.
Coarse-grained wave ripples in Wales (Photograph by Roger Suthren; borrowed from
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/geology/sedstruc/wavrip/piccap.htm).
 The sequence of bed forms under unidirectional flows

Like unidirectional flow bed forms, under oscillatory flows the type of
bed form changes in a predicatable manner with increasing flow strength
(e.g., Um).
Rolling-grain ripples:

A few millimetres high, < 10 cm long.

Symmetrical and straight-crested; very low angle
slopes.
May be a metastable bed form: will grow into vortex ripples if currents
are sustained for sufficient duration.
 Vortex Ripples:
2-D vortex ripples form first; classic wave ripples.
Broad troughs, peaked crests, straight to bifurcating crests.
3-D vortex ripples: longer and higher than 2-D vortex ripples.
Circular mounds and hollows (hummocks and swales).
Schematic of hummocks and swales of 3-D vortex ripples.
Post-vortex ripples:

Washed-out 3-D vortex ripples.

Longer and lower than 3-D vortex ripples.

Transition to flat bed.

Reversing crest ripples:
Asymmetric ripples that reverse in direction with every stroke of the
wave.
ONLY form under relatively long period waves (long enough stroke in
one direction to form an asymmetric ripple).
Flat bed:

A flat, featureless bed with rare parting and/or current lineation.

Bed form stability diagrams
Range of conditions under which bed forms are stable depends on:

Um: maximum orbital speed.

do (T): orbital diameter and wave period (influence the duration of the
flow in a given direction).
: fluid density.

: fluid dynamic viscosity.

}Thought to be of secondary importance.

d: grain size.
s: sediment density; assume quartz sand.

}
: sphericity
Thought to be of secondary importance.
Grain shape
Bed form stability diagrams are normally plotted as Um versus T for a
narrow range of grain sizes.
0.15 – 0.21 mm sand
 Cross-stratification formed by oscillatory flow bed forms

Note I = L/H (L is the length of the ripple, H is the height) and is known as the “ripple index”
Under some conditions 2-D vortex
ripples form braided sets dipping in
opposite directions with curved
bounding surfaces. Termed
chrevron cross-stratification

Like ripples formed by

unidirectional currents, the style
of preservation of the cross-
strata depend on the rate of
migration of the ripples and the
rate of aggradation of the bed.
 Cross-stratification formed by 3-D ripples includes hummucky cross-
stratification (HCS) and swaley cross-stratification (SCS).
Hummocky cross-stratification is characterized by:
1. Convex upward (hummocks) and concave upward (swales) laminae and internal bounding
surfaces; spacing of hummocks and swales is commonly large, in excess of 1m.

Low angle (generally less than 10 but up to 15), erosional bounding surfaces.

3. Internal laminae that are approximately

parallel to the lower bounding surfaces.

4. Individual laminae that vary

systematically in thickness laterally and
their angle of dip diminishes regularly.

5. Internal laminae and bounding surfaces

dip equally in all directions (i.e., they are
isotropic).

HCS is best developed in coarse silt to fine

sand.
HCS produced in a wave duct at MIT.
Swaley cross-stratification is similar to HCS but lacks hummocks and
internal laminae and bounding surfaces commonly exceed 15

SCS

HCS
Reversing crest ripples will produce a form cross-stratification with
cross-strata dipping in opposite directions.

Presumably preservation requires relatively high rates of deposition so

that the bed aggrades over a short period of time.

Flat bed will preserve a horizontal to gently undulating internal

lamination.
 Combined flow bedforms and stratification

The bed forms and stratification vary with the relative strength of the
unidirectional and oscillatory flows.

Ripples become more 2-D in plan form and symmetrical in cross-section

as the flow ranges from purely undirectional to purely oscillatory.
3D vortex ripples become
increasingly asymmetrical as
the unidirectional component
increases.

Only a very small

unidirectional component
will turn hummocky bed
forms into asymmetrical bed
forms.

Plane or flat bed is stable

over a wide range of
conditions under combined
flows.
 Internal stratification varies from that associated with purely wave-
formed structures to that of purely undirectional flow structures.

With only a small unidirectional component HCS-like stratificaiton

becomces anisotropic (not dipping equally in all directions).
A possible model for internal stratification produced by combined flows.