SSP3.5
Flow and bedform dynamics on Earth and Mars: current understanding of a complex interplay
Co-organized by GM5/HS13, co-sponsored by IAS
Convener: Anne BaarECSECS | Co-conveners: Maria Azpiroz-ZabalaECSECS, Guilhem Amin Douillet, Alice Lefebvre, Thaiënne van Dijk, Francesco SaleseECSECS, Steven BanhamECSECS
Displays
| Attendance Fri, 08 May, 08:30–10:15 (CEST)

Sedimentary features are the result of a complex interplay between the erosion, transport and deposition of grains under the action of a current - unidirectional, oscillatory, combined or multidirectional. Each sedimentary structure represents a palaeo-surface expression, and therefore they contain a record of the geomorphology driven by the flow conditions, provided that one understands how to invert and read this history. Evidence for sedimentary processes have been identified on Earth but also on other planetary bodies, based on observations of geomorphic features and stratigraphy.

Bedforms and other sedimentary features are generated in a wide variety of environments, including: aeolian wind-driven transport, rivers, estuarine, lacustrine and deltaic settings, pyroclastic currents, sub- and pro-glacial environments, shorelines and continental shelves, offshore storms, turbidity currents and subaqueous mass flows, deep-sea currents and extra-terrestrial bodies.

This session will host contributions regarding many aspects of the complex interaction between flow, bedforms and sedimentary structures on Earth and planetary surfaces, from their description to interpretation, and from modelling to experiments to field quantification, with studies ranging across differing spatial and temporal scales, from large-scale organisation patterns down to the grain-scale, as well as the palaeo-dynamic and morphodynamic aspects of control and feedback between flow, sediment transport and bedform evolution, on Earth and on Mars.

The varied contributions from field, laboratory, theoretical, and numerical approaches are intended to advance our knowledge of how to decipher the information contained in terrestrial and extra-terrestrial sedimentary bedforms, and help foster fruitful discussions between sedimentologists, geomorphologists, hydrologists, physicists and all researchers working on understanding bedform dynamics and their sedimentary products.