Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
FRANCOIS LEGROS*
Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas, c/ Llus Sole i Sabars s/n 08028 Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: fplegros@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT: A theoretical analysis is presented that suggests that dispersive pressure in a grain flow, modified grain flow, or traction carpet
cannot account for the upward segregation of large particles, as sometimes assumed. The analysis shows that rapid granular flows are selforganized in such a way that dispersive pressure at any level in a
shearing mass of grains is always equal to the applied normal stress.
An increase in dispersive pressure causes an immediate expansion of
the flow and a consequent decrease in dispersive pressure until it equals
the applied normal stress again. The gradient of dispersive pressure is
therefore hydrostatic, and only particles lighter than the bulk density of the flow are pushed upward. The inverse grading of heavy particles observed in a great variety of deposits is not caused by dispersive
pressure and must be explained by other mechanisms.
INTRODUCTION
Vertical inverse grading (also called reverse grading) is a common feature in many clastic deposits. It occurs in beach foreshore and berm overwash laminae, foresets of eolian and subaqueous dunes, and in the deposits of debris flows, turbidity currents, and pyroclastic flows and surges.
Deposits can be inversely graded throughout the bed or only in basal parts.
Since the 1970s, the most popular hypothesis in the geological literature
has been that inverse grading is caused by the segregation of large particles
away from the solid boundary because of the action of the dispersive pressure existing in a rapid granular flow. This mechanism has been invoked
in a great number of papers (it is not possible to list them all) for a variety
of deposits, including sand dunes (Lowe 1976), beach foreshore sands (Sallenger 1979; DeCelles and Cavazza 1992), deposits of hyperconcentrated
flows and debris flows (Schmincke 1967; Walton and Palmer 1988; Todd
1989; Best 1992; Cole and Stanley 1994; Sohn et al. 1999), turbidites
(Hiscott and Middleton 1980; Lowe 1982; Hiscott 1994; Sohn 1997), ignimbrites and pyroclastic-surge deposits (Sparks 1976; Sigurdsson et al.
1987; Cole and Scarpati 1993; Palladino and Valentine 1995; Gianetti
1998; Druitt 1998; Hughes and Druitt 1998), and in the deposits of rockslide avalanches (Cruden and Hungr 1986).
In contrast, the mechanism of size segregation by dispersive pressure is
not very popular amongst chemical engineers, and, in the engineering literature, other explanations for inverse grading are generally preferred. One
of them is that small particles fall through the holes that temporarily open
in an agitated granular mass more easily than large ones, and so tend to
concentrate at the base by kinetic sieving or random fluctuating sieving (Middleton 1970; Savage and Lun 1988; Cantelaube and Bideau
1995; Maske et al. 1997; Pouliquen et al. 1997). Some geologists have
suggested that inverse grading in some deposits may reflect a temporal
increase in the size of particles supplied to the progressively aggrading
deposit (Allen 1981; Branney and Kokelaar 1992; Kneller and Branney
1995; Hand 1997; Vallance 2000; Legros and Mart 2001).
Although the segregation of large particles due to dispersive pressure in
grain flows has been postulated for several decades in sedimentology, few
papers have attempted to propose a quantitative or even a qualitative physical treatment of the mechanism by which such a segregation could occur.
This paper presents an analysis, based on an idea originally proposed by
* Present address: Instituto Geofsico del Peru, Urb. La Marina B19, Cayma,
Arequipa, Peru
JOURNAL OF SEDIMENTARY RESEARCH, VOL. 72, NO. 1, JANUARY, 2002, P. 166170
Copyright q 2002, SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) 1527-1404/02/072-166/$03.00
Middleton (1970), that shows that granular dispersive pressure cannot provide a force to lift heavy particles, so inverse grading must be explained
by other mechanisms.
ANALYSIS
1 2
dU
dy
(1)
167
As shown in the preceding section, the fact that s and D 2 appear in the
equation of the dispersive pressure (Eq. 1) does not mean that the dispersive
pressure force acting upon a particle is proportional to its density and to
the square of its diameter. On the basis of this erroneous idea, Sallenger
(1979) developed the concept of dispersive equivalence. According to
168
F. LEGROS
are in hydraulic settling equivalence. The mean sizes of heavy and light
grains segregated at any level must be influenced by the overall size distribution of each population in the deposit. Consider, for example, the top
level, enriched in coarse grains. If we hypothesize that grains are segregated
according to size only, and that density has no effect, the top level should
be composed almost entirely of light grains, because the coarsest heavy
grains available in the deposit are smaller than the coarsest available light
grains. Of course, all particles segregated in the top level cannot have
exactly the same size. If grains as small as the coarsest heavy grains available in the deposit are present in the top level, then some of them should
be heavy grains. Thus, the mean size of heavy grains in the top level should
be less than that of light grains, although density has been assumed to play
no role. This remains true at every level in the deposit because heavy grains
always have a greater amount of small grains and a lower amount of large
grains available in the overall population from which they are segregated
than light grains. This effect is probably able to explain most of the size
differences observed by Sallenger.
In the three examples above, dispersive equivalence could not be properly tested because heavy and light grains had different shapes, different
sizes, or variable densities. A simple way to avoid these problems is to
generate experimental granular flows with particles of different densities
but same size and shape. According to Sallenger (1979), we should expect
the heavy particles to become segregated to the top. Alonso et al. (1991)
carried out such experiments and observed that the heavy particles tended
to sink. These authors also showed that, in order to compensate for the
floating effect of a greater diameter, a particle must have a higher density, just the opposite of what is expected from the hypothesis of dispersive
equivalence.
Takahashi (1980) calculated theoretically the velocity of upward migration of large particles due to dispersive pressure forces in a granular flow
and compared it with experimental measurements. In order to match the
theoretical and observed velocities, he had to adjust freely the friction term
in the equation of momentum. Furthermore, he assumed an unrealistic vertically constant particle concentration in the flow. As discussed previously,
a dispersive pressure force sufficient to overcome the weight of a heavy
particle implies a dispersive pressure gradient stronger than the static pressure gradient of the bed, hence bed expansion and decrease of the gradient
of dispersive pressure. The upward migration of large particles in a granular
flow is better explained, and even quantitatively modeled, by the process
of kinetic sieving (Savage and Lun 1988). This process, by which large
particles accumulate at the top owing to the easier percolation of small
ones, seems to dominate particle segregation as long as the size ratio is not
too large (Savage and Lun 1988; Cantelaube and Bideau 1995; Pouliquen
et al. 1997; Thomas 2000). For size ratios greater than 5, Thomas (2000)
shows that, in experimental granular flows containing two types of particles
of different size but same density, large particles are able to force their
way down by squeezing out small particles. Depending on the size ratio
and the relative abundance of the two species, large particles can accumulate at the top, the base, or even the middle of the flow, a behavior
difficult to explain if segregation is due to dispersive pressure forces.
The segregation processes in granular mixtures containing a wide range
of particle sizes are not easy to infer from experiments that use only two
particle sizes (Thomas 2000). Furthermore, many pyroclastic-flow, debrisflow, and turbidity-current deposits are inversely graded only at their bases,
the rest of the deposit being ungraded or normally graded, which may be
difficult to explain by a simple segregation process. One hypothesis is that
the deposit is not the frozen image of the flow, but that it forms by progressive aggradation of particles at the base of a steady or unsteady flow
(Branney and Kokelaar 1992). In this model, the material deposited from
the leading part of the flow, which will form the basal layer of the deposit,
may contain less coarse particles because they are mainly transported in
the slow, basal part of the flow and thus lag behind the flow head (Hand
1997; Legros and Mart 2001). Similarly, in debris-flow deposits, it has
The hypothesis that inverse grading in deposits of grain flows or modified grain flows can develop because of dispersive pressure is not correct.
The gradient of dispersive pressure necessary to generate inverse grading
cannot be maintained because it causes an immediate expansion of the grain
flow and hence a decrease in particle concentration and dispersive pressure.
In this manner, the gradient of dispersive pressure is forced to be equal to
the static pressure gradient in the flow, and only particles with density
lower than the bulk density of the flow can be pushed upward. The concept
of dispersive equivalence used in sedimentology is flawed, as shown by
the present analysis and by experiments that use particles of same size and
different densities (Alonso et al. 1991). Other plausible explanations for
inversely graded deposits include size segregation by the kinetic sieving
process or the formation of the deposit by progressive aggradation with a
temporal increase in the size of particles supplied from the current to the
deposit.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mike Branney and Gerry Middleton provided constructive and helpful reviews.
The author is supported by a Pierre and Marie Curie grant (ERBFMBICT983445).
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(A2)
The total dispersive pressure force acting upon the particle, F, is therefore
F 5 Fz 2 Fz1D 5 (Pz 2 Pz1D )D 2 5
dP 3
dP
D 5 V
dz
dz
(A3)
(A4)
where g is the acceleration due to gravity. Because the dispersive pressure is always
forced to be equal to the static pressure at any level in the flow, we can write
APPENDIX
Consider a particle of dimension D and density s in a granular flow. For simplicity, we consider here that the particle is cubic and that its lower and upper faces
are perpendicular to the dispersive pressure gradient. The lower face is at a level z
and undergoes an upward force (Fz) caused by the dispersive pressure at that level
(Pz), equal to
Fz 5 PzD 2
Fz1D 5 Pz1DD 2
(A1)
dP
5 rb g
dz
(A5)
where rb is the bulk density of the flow. The resultant force acting upon the particle,
R, is therefore equal to
R 5 F 2 W 5 (r b 2 s)gV
(A6)
We see that R is positive, hence directed upward, only for s , r b, i.e., for particles
with a density lower than the bulk density of the flow.