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[SLS Pre-Defense] Michael Dotzel

Date: Thursday, May 15, 2025 Time: 4:00 - 5:00pm Location: 54-915 | MIT Campus, Cambridge, MA Attend Virtually

“Rigid Particle Accumulation Experiments in an Ekman-Driven Eddy”

Microplastics abound in the world’s oceans. While their redistribution by ubiquitous meso-and submeso-scale eddies is of biological and physical importance, their subsurface distribution within these eddies remains uncertain. In this talk I present theoretical motivation for and experimental validation of buoyant spherical microplastic clustering about a subsurface ring-shaped attractor. A combination of numerical modeling and experimental analysis gives consistent estimates for the speed and extent of attraction. I also investigate the dependence of the observed cluster density on the size of the cluster itself, finding that a given particle distribution within the eddy will accumulate to a cluster with radius that decays with particle count.

 


Sack Lunch Seminar Series —
Informal seminar series within PAOC (Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate) that focuses on more specialized topics than the PAOC Colloquium. The presentations are either given by an invited speaker or by a member of PAOC and can focus on new research or discussion of a paper of particular interest.

Contact: sacklunch-committee@mit.edu