This award supports John T. Wells and Richard Luettich of the Institute of Marine Sciences of the University of North Carolina to collaborate in physical oceanography with Doeke Eisma and others of the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. The objective of their research is to increase understanding of the behavior of large particle aggregates in the shallow coastal areas under natural conditions. Dr. Wells and his group are currently carrying out research on this off the coast of North Carolina. Funding from this award will enable them to extend this observational program to a second set of field sites in the North Sea where similar studies are being carried out by Dutch researchers under the direction of Doeke Eisma. Both field efforts will benefit from techniques developed independently in each other's laboratories. Understanding the behavior of particle aggregates in shallow water bodies is a very difficult problem about which almost nothing is known. It is also a very important problem, with both fundamental and immediately applicable implications. The fundamental scientific interest is in understanding geological processes in marine systems (erosion, deposition, etc.) while the practical value is the implications for understanding the transport and fate of marine pollutants, which are known to become attached to fine particles that often form large aggregates.
