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.
A new Stanford study challenges the decades-old view that the rise of land plants half a billion years ago dramatically changed the shapes of rivers.
Earth Sciences
Aug 21, 2025
0
38
On May 12, 2008, the magnitude 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake shook central China, its destructive tremors spreading from the flank of the Longmen Shan, or Dragon's Gate Mountains, along the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau.
Earth Sciences
Aug 13, 2025
0
105
Rivers are Earth's arteries. Water, sediment and nutrients self-organize into diverse, dynamic channels as they journey from the mountains to the sea. Some rivers carve out a single pathway, while others divide into multiple ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 11, 2025
1
193
Analysis has shown a boulder weighing almost 1,200 tons in Tonga is one of the largest known wave-transported rocks in the world, providing new insights into the Pacific region's history and risk of tsunamis.
Earth Sciences
May 21, 2025
0
30
Airborne dust pollution is a growing problem for residents of Utah and other Western states, especially with the exposed lakebed of Great Salt Lake potentially becoming more hazardous as the lake dries. Natural dust blows ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 7, 2025
0
327
Fast-moving underwater avalanches, known as turbidity currents, are responsible for transporting vast quantities of microplastics into the deep sea, according to new research published today.
Earth Sciences
Apr 4, 2025
0
282
