Abstract |
Marine benthic fauna play an important role in governing sediment-water relationships, including resuspension of particle-borne contaminants. Constant burrowing and subsurface deposit-feeding tend to eject sediment into overlying water, break up the cohesive structure of silt-clay sediment, increase sediment-water content, and increase physical resuspension. Experimental evidence shows that resuspension of sediment is influenced by shear stress at the sediment-water interface and/or by the type, abundance and reworking time of infauna. Resuspension by biota was investigated by monitoring the turbidity of excurrent water of deposit-feeding species. The interaction between biota and physical shear in sediment resuspension was measured using an annular flume and a flume-calibrated Particle Entrainment Simulator. (Copyright (c) 1993 Elsevier Science Publishers.) |