Sediment transport is the suite of physical processes governing the entrainment, movement, and deposition of particulate material (clastic or biogenic) by a transporting medium, typically water, air, or ice. In fluvial and coastal systems, it is controlled by fluid shear stress, turbulence, grain size, density, and bed roughness, and occurs as bedload, suspended load, or wash load. Sediment transport underpins channel and shoreline morphodynamics, stratigraphic architecture, and landscape evolution, and is commonly quantified using transport equations (e.g., Shields parameter–based formulations) and numerical models that couple hydrodynamics with sediment entrainment, advection, diffusion, and deposition.
Stand on the damp sand on a California beach and chances are you're standing on top of an active earthworks site. Sand hoppers (Megalorchestia spp.), the tiny, shrimp-like creatures commonly found eating away at kelp on the ...
Earth Sciences
3 hours ago
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It's no secret that plastic and other human trash are a problem for marine life, but our understanding has long focused on the ocean's surface. As described in a study published in PLOS One, a more complete picture is coming ...
Environment
Sep 16, 2026
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At just an inch (2.5 centimeters) long, the sand hoppers skipping across California's Isla Vista Beach at dawn don't exactly look like a force of nature. But a new study reveals that these shrimp-like creatures might be doing ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 16, 2026
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The waters of the remote Scottish island of Jura have long been famous for making whiskey. Now, the island's rivers have helped geologists learn more about how rivers erode rocks, providing new evidence that what streams ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 7, 2026
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New research from the University of St Andrews shows that disturbing seabed sediments through trawling could cause significant losses of carbon stored in Scotland's sea lochs. The study, published in Marine Environmental ...
Environment
Sep 1, 2026
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Namibia has granted environmental clearance for an offshore phosphate mining project that paves the way for the world's first commercial seabed-dredging operation for the mineral, despite opposition from green groups and ...
Environment
Aug 25, 2026
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Sometimes science throws up the unexpected. When a team of researchers set out to model river erosion in Canada's High Arctic, they did not expect the findings to defy common sense.
Earth Sciences
Aug 22, 2026
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Large earthquakes can dramatically reshape mountain landscapes by triggering thousands of landslides and rapidly accelerating erosion. However, the reasons why some mountain regions experience intense, long-lasting erosion ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 18, 2026
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After a heavy rain, rivers often turn brown with sediment, sand, silt and soil washed from the landscape that play a vital role in shaping rivers.
Earth Sciences
Aug 11, 2026
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Every monsoon, India's rivers turn brown. To most of us, that color simply means muddy water. But hidden within it is the material that builds fertile floodplains, creates river islands, nourishes deltas and even shapes coastlines: ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 10, 2026
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