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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 109, F04010, doi:10.1029/2004JF000172, 2004

Threshold phenomena in erosion driven by subsurface flow

Alexander E. Lobkovsky

Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


Bill Jensen

Department of Physics, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA


Arshad Kudrolli

Department of Physics, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA


Daniel H. Rothman

Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


Abstract

We study channelization and slope destabilization driven by subsurface (groundwater) flow in a laboratory experiment. The pressure of the water entering the sand pile from below as well as the slope of the sand pile are varied. We present quantitative understanding of the three modes of sediment mobilization in this experiment: surface erosion, fluidization, and slumping. The onset of erosion is controlled not only by shear stresses caused by surfical flows but also by hydrodynamic stresses deriving from subsurface flows. These additional forces require modification of the critical Shields criterion. Whereas surface flows alone can mobilize surface grains only when the water flux exceeds a threshold, subsurface flows cause this threshold to vanish at slopes steeper than a critical angle substantially smaller than the maximum angle of stability. Slopes above this critical angle are unstable to channelization by any amount of fluid reaching the surface.

Received 27 May 2004; accepted 21 October 2004; published 24 December 2004.

Keywords: channelization; Shields criterion; seepage erosion.

Index Terms: 1815 Hydrology: Erosion and sedimentation; 1824 Hydrology: Geomorphology (1625); 1832 Hydrology: Groundwater transport; 5415 Planetology: Solid Surface Planets: Erosion and weathering.

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Citation: Lobkovsky, A. E., B. Jensen, A. Kudrolli, and D. H. Rothman (2004), Threshold phenomena in erosion driven by subsurface flow, J. Geophys. Res., 109, F04010, doi:10.1029/2004JF000172.