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turbidity current

American  

noun

Geology.

  1. a turbid, dense current of sediments in suspension moving along the slope and bottom of a lake or ocean.

turbidity current British  

noun

  1. a swirling mass of water and suspended material stirred up by a tsunami, a storm, a river in flood, etc

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
turbidity current Scientific  
/ tər-bĭd′ĭ-tē /

  1. A swift downhill current in water, air, or other fluid, triggered by the weight of suspended material such as silt in a current flowing down a continental shelf or snow in an avalanche.

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By plotting the time and place of each cable break, the oceanographers could estimate closely how fast the turbidity current flowed.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.