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.
You're an anaerobic microbe sunbathing on a Martian beach billions of years ago listening to the small waves hit the shoreline as you take in the perchlorates in the Martian regolith. This is because while Mars is warm and ...
Planetary Sciences
May 13, 2026
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Mud-rich coastlines could face a greater tsunami risk, at least that may have been the case for the 2011 Tōhoku-oki tsunami that killed more than 19,000 people and led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. According ...
Geologists have solved the mystery of the disappearance from the geological record, millions of years ago, of one of North America's most important waterways: the Colorado River. A paper published in Science shows that the ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 17, 2026
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Imagine a dump truck dropping 13 tons of dirt into the waters of Brush Creek, a waterway that feeds northwest Arkansas' primary drinking water source, Beaver Lake. That's how much soil and sediment researchers measured going ...
Environment
Apr 3, 2026
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The search for life on Mars involves the efforts of scientists from many different disciplines. An important aspect of that search is to study Martian sedimentary rocks for information about the planet's environment when ...
Astrobiology
Apr 2, 2026
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The technology used to predict sand and dust storm (SDS) severity has for decades systematically overestimated when and where sediment is transported across Earth's surface, a new study shows. Existing models, which draw ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 24, 2026
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Every time we do a load of laundry, tiny fibers of polyester escape from our clothes and slip down the drain. These microfibers, so small they can be invisible to the naked eye, are among the most common forms of microplastic ...
A research team led by University of Tsukuba has developed a new method to estimate long-term debris supply from steep slopes by measuring debris accumulated on decades-old abandoned roads. Debris supplied by rockfall and ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 27, 2026
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Experts have warned that extensive storm damage caused to one of South Devon's most iconic routes is likely to become more frequent as global sea levels rise and the impacts of extreme wave events increases. Members of the ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 18, 2026
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Plastic pollution has become a major global environmental concern as modern societies rely increasingly on plastic products. Much of this plastic waste eventually reaches the ocean, with rivers acting as the main transport ...
Environment
Feb 10, 2026
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