Two Kinds of Waves Causing the Resuspension of Deep-Sea Sediments: Excitation and Internal Solitary Waves

The resuspension of marine sediments plays a key role in the biogeochemical cycle and marine ecology system. Internal solitary waves are considered to be important driving forces of the resuspension of bottom sediments. In this paper, the movement of turbidity currents, the generation and the effects on the bottom bed of internal solitary waves and excitation waves are studied by flume tests and numerical simulations, and the sediment resuspension are analyzed. The results show that the excitation wave can lead to the resuspension of the bottom sediments under all the conditions, while the internal solitary wave can lead to the resuspension of the sediment only under some special conditions, such as high amplitude or large underwater slope. Under the experimental conditions, the change in the near-bottom velocity caused by the excitation wave is close to three times that of the internal solitary wave.