School of Earth and Environment
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Esther Sumner Dr Esther Sumner

Research Fellow

Telephone number: +44(0) 113 34 35234
Email address: E.J.Sumner@leeds.ac.uk
Room: 8.20 SCR

Biography

I completed a NERC funded PhD at the University of Bristol in 2009 during which I used experiments and outcrop field studies to understand the dynamics of submarine gravity flows. This work radically revises our view of submarine flows because it demonstrates the profound influence of small changes in mud content on flow rheology and deposit morphology. Subsequently I held a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton funded by NERCs strategic marine science programme Oceans 2025. During this fellowship I studied sediment cores from the modern seafloor in order to understand the architecture of the longest run-out sediment flows yet found on Earth, located offshore Morocco.  I also collected sediment cores from offshore Sumatra in order to evaluate whether submarine flow deposits are a good palaeoearthquake proxy in this region. I am currently a post doctoral fellow studying the flow dynamics and sedimentation of an active submarine channel. This involves using NERCs autonomous underwater vehicle Autosub3 to measure 3D velocity in an active field-scale saline gravity current on the Black Sea shelf.

Research Interests

My research combines: i) innovative programmes of laboratory experiments; ii) conducting fieldwork both onshore and offshore; iii) collecting analysing and integrating bathymetric surveying techniques, three dimensional fluid velocity profiling, and coring techniques; and iv) developing models of geophysical flows.

My research interests include:

The dynamics of submarine sediment gravity flows including turbidity currents, debris flows and transitional flow types. How and why transformations between these different flow types occur and how this information is recorded in their deposits.

The interaction between submarine gravity flows, seafloor morphology and sedimentology within submarine channel systems.

The fundamental processes that underpin sediment suspension in a wide range of environmental flows including: pyroclastic flows, open channel flows and turbidity currents. How we can model sediment suspension and how the loss of different support mechanisms is recorded in deposits.  

The use of submarine sediment gravity flow deposits in reconstructing palaeoearthquake records (turbidite palaeoseismology) for convergent margins.

Publications

  • Sumner EJ; Talling PJ; Amy LA; Wynn RB; Stevenson CJ; Frenz M (2012) Facies architecture of individual basin-plain turbidites: Comparison with existing models and implications for flow processes, Sedimentology, .
  • Dorrell RM; Hogg AJ; Sumner EJ; Talling PJ (2011) The structure of the deposit produced by sedimentation of polydisperse suspensions., Journal of Geophysical Research, 116, pp.F01024.
  • Talling PJ; Wynn RB; Schmidt DN; Rixon R; Sumner EJ; Amy LA (2010) How did thin submarine debris flows carry boulder-sized intraclasts for remarkable distances across low gradients to the far reaches of the Mississippi Fan?, Journal of Sedimentary Research, 80, pp.829-851.
  • Sumner EJ; Talling PJ; Amy LA (2009) The deposits of flows transitional between turbidity current and debris flow, Geology, 37, pp.991-994.
  • Sumner EJ; Amy LA; Talling PJ (2008) Deposit structure and processes of sand deposition from decelerating sediment suspensions, Journal of Sedimentary Research, 78, pp.529-547.
  • Amy LA; Talling PJ; Edmonds V; Sumner EJ; Leseuer A (2006) An experimental investigation on sand-mud settling behaviour: Implications for bimodal mud contents of submarine flow deposits, Sedimentology, 53, pp.1411-1435.