The East African Institute for Fundamental Research (EAIFR)  wishes to inform those who may be interested of a GEO@EAIFR webinar. This seminar will take place on April 23, 2025 and will be broadcast live on ZOOM. It will also be recorded and later posted on the ICTP-EAIFR YouTube channel, where one can find the previous recorded GEO@EAIFR webinars. Below all the details:

Speaker: Professor Mathew Wells, Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences. the University of Toronto., Canada

Title: How the dynamics of turbidity currents may influence the overturn of the meromictic Lake Kivu.

When: April 23, 2025 at 4:00 pm (Kigali time).

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking here.

All are very welcome.

Abstract: When a sediment laden river flows into a stratified water body, the water mass can either intrude as an overflow, interflow or underflow, depending upon the density contrast. Different modes of sediment driven convection occur in each case. For the case of overflows, convective sedimentation occurs beneath the plume, whereby sediment rich plumes rapidly transport fine materials to depth. If underflow of dense sediment laden waters initially occurs, then after sediment has been deposited, the light interstitial material can subsequently loft and potentially mixes the entire water column. For an interflow, both lofting and sediment driven convection can occur above and below the pycnocline. Laboratory experiments were used to describe the vigour of convection in terms of simple dimensionless parameters, which then allows the behaviour of various inflows to be predicted. These laboratory observations are also applied to predict how a turbidity current could lead to lofting and possible overturn of the chemical stratification of Lake Kivu, a large meromictic lake between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Biography:  Dr. Wells is a Professor in the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences at the University of Toronto in Canada. His research group studies the environmental fluid dynamics of the many lakes in Canada, and aims to quantify the mixing in environmental flows, particularly those in large lakes and the coastal ocean where density stratification and the Earth’s rotation play a dominant role in the dynamics. Currently his research focus is on physical limnology, particularly how physical processes in lakes structure biological processes such as fish habitat usage and winter dynamics of dissolved oxygen in frozen lakes.