Hydraulic jumps within pyroclastic density currents and their sedimentary record

This contribution presents a complete and comprehensive formulation of the hydraulic jump phenomenon and reviews sedimentary structures that may be associated with them. Beginning from the general fluid phenomenon, we then focus on examples from pyroclastic density currents in order to infer dynamic parameters on the parent flows. A hydraulic jump is a fluid dynamics phenomenon that corresponds to the sudden increase of the thickness of a flow accompanied by a decrease of its velocity and/or density. A hydraulic jump is the expression of the transition of the flow from two different flow regimes: supercritical to subcritical. This entrains a change in the energy balance between kinetic energy and gravity potential energy. Recently, the terms of 'pneumatic jumps' have been used for similar phenomenon driven within a gas phase, and granular jumps for dense granular flows. It is thought that such strong changes in the flow conditions may leave characteristic structures in the sedimentary record. Indeed, the main variables influencing the sedimentation rate are the flow velocity, particle concentration and turbulence level, all of them strongly affected by a hydraulic jump. Structures deposited by hydraulic/pneumatic jumps have been called cyclic steps and chute and pool structures. Chute and pools represent the record of a single supercritical to subcritical transition, whereas cyclic steps are produced by stable trains of hydraulic jumps and subsequent re-accelerations. Pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) are gas and pyroclasts flows. As such, they can be subjected to granular and pneumatic jumps and their deposit have often been interpreted as containing records of jumps. Steep sided truncations covered by lensoidal layers have been interpreted as the record of internal jumps within density stratified flows. Fines-depleted breccias at breaks in slope are thought to result from the enhanced turbulence at a jump of the entire flow. Sudden increases in thickness of superimposed layers are also thought to represent records from jumps that trigger flow deceleration and thus increase sedimentation rates. We review and discuss examples from the PDC sedimentary record, and try to infer conditions during deposition of those structures.