Bedform

A bedform is a feature that develops at the interface of fluid and a moveable bed, the result of bed material being moved by fluid flow. Examples include ripples and dunes on the bed of a river. Bedforms are often preserved in the rock record as a result of being present in a depositional setting. Bedforms are often characteristic to the flow parameters, and may be used to infer flow depth and velocity, and therefore the Froude number.

Bedforms Initiation

Bedforms are omnipresent in many environments (e.g., fluvial, eolian, glaciofluvial, deltaic and deep sea), although there is still some debate on how they develop. The initiation of bedforms have two - not mutually exclusive - models: defect initiation and instantaneous initiation.

Defect Initiation

The defect theory proposes that the turbulent sweeps that are generated in turbulent flows entrain sediment that upon deposition generates defects in a non-cohesive material. These deposits then propagate downstream via a flow separation process, thus developing bedform fields. The origin of the defects is thought to be linked to packets of hairpin vortex structures. These coherent turbulent structures give rise to entrainment corridors on the mobile bed, forming grain lineations that interact with the low-speed streaks generating an agglomeration of grains. Once a critical height of grains is reached, flow separation occurs over the new structure. Sediment will be eroded close from the reattachment point and deposited downstream creating a new defect. This new defect will thus induce formation of another defect and the process will continue, propagating downstream while the accumulations of grains quickly evolve into small bedforms.