Turbidity currents race down lakebeds as underwater mud avalanches
When sediment-laden water grows denser than the lake around it, the plume can plunge and rush downslope along the bed as a turbidity current — an underwater avalanche of muddy water.
These flows carve channels, build underwater fans, and can snap cables or smother benthic life far from the river mouth that fed them. In deep lakes and seas they may travel for tens of kilometers.
Not all lake motion is waves on top. Turbidity currents move the bottom itself, rewriting the lake floor with every dense pulse of mud.
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