Hydraulic modeling and computational fluid dynamics of bone burial in a sandy river channel

Abstract

An oval recycling flume with live-beds (moveable) of medium and very coarse grained sands were used to explore the process of bone burial as a precursor to fossilization. Two-dimentional computation fluid dynamics was used to visualize and interpret the flow turbulence around bones. Results show that a water mass approaching and passing a static bone (obstruction) is subjected to flow modification by flow separation, flow constriction, and flow acceleration producing complex flow patterns (turbulence). These complex patterns include an upstream high-pressure zone, down flows, and vortices (with flow reversal near the bed) causing bed shear stress that produce bed erosion. Downstream of the bone, the water mass undergoes flow deceleration, water recirculation (turbulence eddies), flow reattachment, low-pressure zone (drag), and sediment deposition. Scour plays a crucial role by undercutting bone on the upstream side and may cause the bone to settle into the bed by rotation or sliding. Scour geometry is determined by bone size and shape, approaching flow velocity and angle to flow, flow depth, bed topography, and bed friction. Drag on the downstream side of the bone causes scoured sediment deposition, but burial by migrating bed forms is the most important method of large bone burial. Bone may be repeatedly buried and exposed with renewed scour. However, each episode of scour may lower the bone deeper into the bed so that it essentially buries itself. No difference in these effects were noted between experiments using fine or coarse grain sizes. This experimental work is then used to interpret the possible history of bone burial in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation on the bone wall inside the Quarry Exhibit Hall at Dinosaur National Monument, Utah.