摘要: In the general study of benthic processes an important set of unknown existsconcerning interactions between the bed and the flow field. The local geometry of the bed in part controls the structure of the bottom boundary layer, but... 展开 In the general study of benthic processes an important set of unknown existsconcerning interactions between the bed and the flow field. The local geometry of the bed in part controls the structure of the bottom boundary layer, but the bed geometry itself is also in part controlled by the flow. Benthic organisms complicate the problem further. Our long range research objectives are to understand the various interactions between sediments, flow and organisms in sufficient detail to permit predictions regarding the relative importance of various processes in different environments. Our approach is an iterative one between theory and field measurements. The proximate objectives of this research are to: (1) document the temporal variation in microtopography of a silt-bottom (90 m STRESS site, northern California shelf) that is most often influenced solely by biological processes, but is episodically modified by physical sediment transport events, (2) determine the recovery time required for biological reworking to erase physically generated bedforms, (3) measure absolute erosion and deposition amounts following sediment transport events, and (4) compare measured time-series of biological and physical roughness to predictions based on combined wave-current bottom boundary models that are forced using current velocity profiles and wave data. 收起