Professor Jeff Peakall - Professor of Process Sedimentology, University of Leeds

 

‘Submarine channels: Bend evolution and sedimentation’

 

There are a wide range of different types of submarine channel, several of which will be illustrated here. Such systems can extend for 100s of kilometres across the seafloor. So how do bends grow in these systems? River channel bends are known to grow by either bank pull, through preferential erosion of the outer bank, or via bend push through deposition at the inner bend. The rates and nature of these processes lead to river channels with different morphologies, in particular in terms of width changes around bends. Previous experimental and numerical work on submarine channels has assumed bends of constant width, in the absence of any data. Here variations in channel width around bends are examined using data from the Congo submarine channel, to assess what processes control bend amplitude growth. The implications of these bend growth processes are examined in terms of sedimentation at inner channel bends. In short, is much of what we thought we knew about submarine channel processes wrong? 

 

Biography

Jeff obtained a BSc in Geography & Geology from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, then an MSc in Sedimentology and its Applications at the University of Reading, before moving to the University of Leeds to do a PhD in sedimentation and tectonics. Jeff then never left Leeds and led the Sorby Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory for 15 years, and is now Head of Experimental Fluid Dynamics for the Leeds Institute of Fluid Dynamics. Jeff’s interests are in deep water sediments, including submarine channels, channel-lobe transition zones, transitional clay-rich flows and hybrid beds. He is also interested in rivers, injectites, bedforms including sole structures, gravity current dynamics, and channels on Mars among many other things. Beyond sedimentology, Jeff has been working with Speedo for the past decade on the measurement and design of elite swimsuits, works on the fluid dynamics of shark skin, and works extensively on nuclear waste remediation. He is currently collaborating with Joan Jonas the doyen of video and performance art.