Subaqueous grain flows at the head of Carmel Submarine Canyon, California

Very coarse sand is the predominate material on the beach, adjacent shelf, and upper canyon-head slopes, while silt and clay cover the surface below a water depth at about 35 m. On angle-of-repose slopes in the upper canyon head, downslope-coarsening deposits are similar to a type of sediment gravity flow deposit formed by grain flows (sand avalanches). Using three sand fractions that were dyed different fluorescent colors, scuba divers generated sand avalanches that produced deposits similar to the natural deposits. -from Authors