'The Basin': Silted [Draft 1.0]

 

All Images: Floating Harbour, Bristol, April 2023 - April 2024

Across the region, significant tracts remain in suspension. Shift and deposition are prime arbiters here and time is both fluvial and coagulate in nature. Because the moon follows an elliptical path around the Earth, the distance between them varies by about 31,000 miles over the course of a month [the entire project betrays an elliptical profile]. Ebb/flood-dominance is strongly dependent on the ratio between the amplitude of the M2 tidal constituent [1.5 m] and the average depth of the tidal channel at mid-tide [2 m]. Morphology is provisional and we stand at the interface between becoming and territoriality. As is clearly understood, the transport and deposition of riverine mud is the primary agent of landscape construction and evolution across the majority of Earth's surface. Time flows in, time flows out [twice every day - disgorging]. Liquid and solid states hand-off as tons of sludge are dragged through the channel and the city’s regulating valves. Accretion rates during winter are likely to be smaller due to river outflows weakening flood currents and strengthening ebb currents, but progress is still retarded overall. Elsewhere, the retreating levels reveal the shallows-bike; the grounded trolley - attractively beached in glistening centimetres. All may run aground here - it appears. Silt builds up and reduces the depth, making it difficult for ships to navigate.

Many people believe that the Moon’s gravitational force also affects humans, as our bodies are made up of approximately 70% fluid. In the present study, resting heart rate [HR] and blood pressure [BP], physical fitness index [PFI], peak HR and BP immediately after step test, and recovery HR and BP after step test, were measured during different phases of the lunar month in 76 male university students [age 23.7 ± 1.7 years]. The moon can make periodic alterations on the liquid area in which our body cells swim, so that we may talk about the biological tides that alter the mood and bring about the behavioural changes. [Unreliably sourced local folklore describes entrapped drownings and parachuting suicides awaiting inflow]. In light of this, it is important that previous entanglements are reviewed across decades as the healing/solidification occurs [repeat visits are implied]. Research data may clarify certain delusions, even as others are jettisoned [i.e. the moon does not directly affect on the human behaviour, but it changes the proportions of the electromagnetic forces in the cosmos, and that leads to troubles among the imbalanced people], but the chance remains that vessels may succumb to a rising bed. Inertia creeps, along with drag coefficients. 

N.B: The diminishing capacity of the flow to maintain a washload transport state [P < 0.8] for the floc-size distribution due to decreasing u* allows for the coarse fraction of the floc-size distribution to exceed the PB and interact with the bed through either ephemeral or perennial deposition.

A vast mechanism was constructed to regulate the flows and provide a stable container for  trade, but the old ad-hoc consultation was not sufficient to ensure that the work was done properly. Basically, they found they had created the largest open sewer in the country and the 'miasma of the Float' was blamed for fevers and sickness. Freelance indy_rev tech bros fell over/under, but their enterprise became disputed and mired. A salaries were accepted in the face of the immensity [these were the essential technocrats]. 

Photographs show: 

[c.]  A small cadre of dedicated stalwarts meeting to formulate strategy.

[b.]  Inflatable vessels describing lazy arcs across the surface of the Basin.

[c.]  Specialist craft being transported in. 

The sluices have been changed and renewed several times since, but the arteries can still become blocked by time - and the synapses overlaid with gluey plaques. However, a more acidic diet may help to clear calcium sludges from bile ducts, and there is scope for easement by using the action of natural currents. Sample cores are taken, and the foul ooze excavated in order to separate constituent memories from historical emulsions, but flow rates are maintained overall. [Flocculation in both field and laboratory environments is a ubiquitous phenomenon that greatly increases the ability of cohesive sentiment to settle out from suspicion].

1. Dredging:

• Nozzles inject large volumes of water at low pressure directly onto the sediment build-up where history accumulates. 

• The process fluidises the sediment build-up, turning it into a density current which remains close to the water bed.

• The sediment is transported by natural phenomena to the final destination through the density current. An ongoing process of organic [re]formation is thus maintained.

• Many components of value have been reclaimed/repurposed as a consequence.

• An embrace of fluid dynamics has yielded significant rewards at all stages [e.g. improved clarity, greater resilience, etc.].

• Dredging operations remain potentially traumatic. Mariners are advised to approach and pass with caution at slow speed. The dredgers will keep a listening watch on VHF Channel 14. 

• Signalling may remain obscure. Vessels should proceed on the side of two green lights or two diamonds in vertical line].

2. Scouring:

• The Basin is drained according to a notified timetable, with tiny whirlpools captured on video by the curious.

• A powerful undertow is created, which sucks the silt out of the harbour and into the river.

• Massive flushing and the great reveal are both fundamental [and considered highly invigorating].

• Only through such radical exposure can the full scope of the Basin be fully appreciated.

• Apparently it’s something that happens quite regularly, with a schedule published on the harbourmaster’s website. 

• Surprisingly, these interventions may go largely unobserved [they only ever scour at lunchtime on weekdays, so most people are at work.] 

• Those unable to witness the spectacle may review the puddling on screens.

Where the damming was enacted, we may gaze down upon a consolidating tract. A micro-delta of rivulets sweats between mud shoulders [investigations have demonstrated that flocculation will occur in the presence of a high concentration of organics, particularly in response to the introduction of long-chain organic polymers such as Xanthum gum]. To one side, an ancient operating wheel is carefully chained and pleasingly silhouetted. The turn of certain events remain under lock and key, as, in March 1988, the sluice control was computerised and automated. This zone is both prehistoric and domestic in character, being plugged with a discarded miscellany: the cone; the bin; the mop; the batten. Each plunges to a given depth, dependant on trajectory, velocity and consistency. They await geological incorporation and archaeological cataloguing. A decapitated totem presides above the slime arena and arcane rituals, cargo cults, and colonising exchange may all be imagined at this site. However, we have our own dramatic sports to enact. Each token now plays its part in an absurdist clay-game, with interrelated narratives arcing and scores duly assigned.

In the summer months, heat and light combine to formulate a splitting crust. Having first tested weight-bearing capabilities, might we then successfully descend the ladder to mount expeditions across the surface of an alien planet? Correlations between psychology and topography are highly pertinent, whilst understanding the fate of muddy river sediment is fundamental to the global carbon cycle, coastal landscape resilience to sea-level rise, river restoration and river–floodplain morphodynamics on Earth and Mars. It is certainly true that one renowned explorer has already extracted impressive geometries from the slop - daubing a code of signs onto designated walls in the process. Our records show that this was foreshadowed even during the earliest cycles. Through such actions, fluid was transmuted to dust through accumulating impacts, and the drift appropriately documented. Encouragingly, bonds between the particles that comprise small, hyper-stable aggregates are strong, and a move towards consolidation is clearly indicated. Further work will be necessary to explore the controls on the yield strength of bonds between aggregates of varying sizes and bonds of various origin - with the insertion of a conical apparatus likely to represent the best route to a greater understanding.