Marine Geology 276 (2010) 105–109

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Marine Geology
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / m a r g e o

Letter

In-situ estimations of the density and porosity of flocs of varying sizes

in a submarine canyon
Ray T. Hsu, James T. Liu ⁎
Institute of Marine Geology and Chemistry, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, 20424, Taiwan, ROC

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper introduces a new method to estimate in-situ floc density and porosity of three particle-size
Received 2 March 2010 classes: 0.45–10, 10–63 and, 63–250 μm. LISST-100 and CatNet (a novel on-board filtration system of nested
Received in revised form 6 July 2010 filters) were used to measure suspended particle volume and mass concentrations of 32 and 3 size-classes,
Accepted 8 July 2010
respectively. Two field experiments were conducted in 2004 and 2006 in the head region of Gaoping
Available online 16 July 2010
Submarine Canyon (GPSC) to test this method. In each experiment CTD and LISST-100 profiling and
Communicated by J.T. Wells simultaneous water sampling were carried out on board R/V Ocean Research III. In 2004, the water samples
were filtered in the laboratory after the cruise using traditional methods. CatNet was used in 2006 and the
Keyword: seawater filtration was done on board. Assuming the observed suspended particles were all flocs composed
floc of primary particles (with assumed density of 2.65 g/cm3) and interstitial water (with assumed density of
bulk density 1.025 g/cm3) we estimated the volume of primary particles. The volume difference between flocs (measured
porosity from LISST-100) and primary particles is the interstitial pore space in flocs. Subsequently, the porosity of a
suspended sediment floc particle is the ratio of the volume of the interstitial pore space to that of the floc particle. Results for 2004
CatNet show erroneous values of estimated floc porosities, which do not appear in 2006. The major difference is that
in-situ filtration
the seawater was filtered immediately on board using CatNet in 2006. After removing erroneous data related
to after-cruise filtering, the averaged floc porosity and density in the three grain-size classes were 47.0, 64.0,
85.9% and 1.89, 1.61, 1.25 g/cm3, respectively. There is a trend that larger particles have lower density, which
is supported by literature. The temporal variations of floc density and porosity of all three particle-size
groups were larger in the surface than near the bottom of the submarine canyon. This vertical variability
resulted from flocculation and biogenic processes in the surface of the coastal ocean, and the terrestrial
source of the Gaoping River. Floc density is an important physical parameter to evaluate the settling flux of
suspended sediments in estuarine and marine environments. This approach provides direct in-situ floc bulk
densities of different grain-size classes, which has advantages over conventional methods.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Most suspended sediments in the estuarine and coastal environ-
ments are in the form of flocs because of flocculation processes (Krank
and Milligan, 1992; Eisma et al., 1994; Van Leussen, 1994; Dyer and
manning, 1999; Van Der Lee, 2000; Xia et al., 2004). The traditional
method for estimating floc density is based on Stokes law using
measurements of the floc size and its settling velocity, which usually is
estimated from video or camera images in a settling tube (Fennessy
et al., 1994; Van Leussen, 1994; Dyer and Manning, 1999; Sternberg
et al., 1999; Curran et al., 2007). However, Stokes law is applicable to
spherical particles in the low-Reynolds-number flow conditions (Gerard
and John, 1984). This method does not reflect the great diversity in size,
shape, and density of floc particles in nature (Liu et al., 2009a,b).
Additionally, the settling velocity measurement in the settling tube and
the video/camera image analysis is tedious and requires lengthy
processing time. The traditional approach is limited when applied to
sediment dynamics on differential time and space scales and in different
estuarine and coastal environments.
Mikkelsen and Pejrup (2000) used LISST-100 (Laser In-Situ
Scattering and Transmissometry) measurements of VC (volume
concentration) and SSC (suspended sediment concentration in mass
per volume) of water samples to calculate the mean effective density
(Δρ) of suspended particles using the following equation:
SSC
Δρ = ρF −ρW ≈ ð1Þ
VC

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 7 525 5144; fax: +886 7 525 5130.
In Eq. (1) ρF is the bulk floc density and ρw is the seawater density.
E-mail addresses: ray@mail.nsysu.edu.tw (R.T. Hsu), james@mail.nsysu.edu.tw This equation assumes that most of the suspended particles are
(J.T. Liu). composed of flocs. If suspended particles mostly consist of primary

0025-3227/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2010.07.003
106 R.T. Hsu, J.T. Liu / Marine Geology 276 (2010) 105–109
particles, the SSC/VC is the density of primary particles (Mikkelsen
and Pejrup, 2001). Hence, it is an approximation for Δρ of flocs.
In this paper, we followed the concept of Krone (1978, 1986) who
proposed a two-dimensional schematic representation of several
orders of grain aggregation and then re-derived the ρF from VC and
SSC (the equation will be shown in the section of data analysis and
results). Similarly, the bulk floc porosity (n) can be estimated
following the same concept.
Most suspended particles are flocs, which are flocculated or
aggregated from organic and inorganic constituents (Eisma, 1986;
Mikkelsen and Pejrup, 1998; Turner and Millward, 2002; Mikkelsen et
al., 2007). Many literatures show that flocs are fragile and break up
easily during sampling, transport, and filtering analysis (Bale and
Morris, 1987; Manning et al., 2006).
In this paper, we present results from a novel in situ on-board
particle filtration system, CatNet, that is patented in the Republic of
China (Taiwan) with patent number M275880. This system has been
used in geochemical and biochemical studies (Ho et al., 2007).
However, it has not been used to study suspended sediment
flocculation and density. In this paper, we also demonstrate that
water samples filtered on board could reduced the estimation errors
of suspended sediment concentration (SSC) due to the breakage of
flocs or decay of suspended particulate organic matter during
transport and storage of water samples.
2. Study area and experimental setup
The study site is located in the head region of the Gaoping
Submarine Canyon (GPSC), which is in the vicinity of the Gaoping
River Mouth. Gaoping River (GPR) is the largest river in term of
discharge and second largest in terms of sediment load in Taiwan, and
also ranks twelfth in the top 20 rivers in the world in terms of
sediment yield (Milliman et al., 1995; Shih et al., 1995a,b; Chen et al.,
2004). Therefore, lithogenic particles are the dominant suspended
sediments in the head region of GPSC (Liu, et al., 2009a). There are two
obvious nepheloid layers in the surface and bottom of the GPSC (Liu et
al., 2010). A thin surface nepheloid layer (SNL) is characterized by low
values of salinity and light transmission indicating the presence of the
river plume. The bottom nepheloid layer (BNL) increases its thickness
Fig. 1. Bathymetry of Gaoping Submarine Canyon and locations of the profiling stations in 6/18/2004 and 8/27–28/2006. The inset is a large-scaled map of Taiwan.
and SSC with the offshore cold water in the course of a semidiurnal
tidal cycle (Liu et al., 2010).
Two experiments using R/V Ocean Researcher III (OR-3) were
conducted on June 18, 2004 and August 27, 28, 2006. In 2004 two
stations (N and M) located near the turning point of the meandering
part of the canyon (Fig. 1) were occupied alternatively for 8 h. At each
station hourly hydrographic profiling using a CTD and a LISST-100 was
carried out and water samples of 10 L each at different depths were
taken for SSC analysis. Part of the SSC data from station N has been
reported in Liu et al. (2009b), but the LISST measurements and the in
situ density estimation of the suspended sediment from both stations
have not been reported. In total, there were 16 profiles taken in the 8-
hour duration at each station. Water samples were added with HgCl
solution to avoid bio-fouling when they were in transit to the
laboratory. In the lab each water sample was filtered sequentially
through 500, 250, 63 μm stainless steel sieves, 10 μm nylon net, and
GF/C (1.2 μm) Whatman glass microfibre filters.
The sampling site in the 2006 experiment was located farther
north from the 2004 stations and was closer to the terminus of the
Gaoping Submarine Canyon and to the mouth of the Gaoping River
(Fig. 1). The experiment lasted for 24 h, in which the CTD and LISST
cast was done hourly and water sampling was done every 3 h. In this
experiment we used CatNet for on-board filtration. In order to collect
sufficient suspended particles for analysis, after each cast three 20-L
Go-Flo bottles were connected to the CatNet simultaneously and in
total 60 L of seawater was filtered in one setting.
The CatNet filtration system was equipped with three funnel-
shaped Nitex nets that were staked on top of a polycarbonate (PC)
rectangular container that was having the dimensions of 70 × 30 ×
30 cm. Mesh sizes of the nets were 153, 63, 10 μm, respectively by
default. During filtration some suspended particles sank into the
100 mL bottle at the bottom of the net. Other particles that attached to
the net were washed into the bottle by hand after the Go-Flo bottles
were drained. The samples in bottles were washed out using
deionized distilled water (DDW) and then filtered through GF/F
(0.7 μm) filters. The residual that remained in the PC box (which still
contained suspended particles smaller than 10 μm) was drained into a
20 L jug to be filtered by GF/D (2.7 μm) and GF/F (0.7 μm) filters. All
particles collected on filters were dried in the oven at 55 °C for 2 h to
 R.T. Hsu, J.T. Liu / Marine Geology 276 (2010) 105–109 107

remove water content and then weighed to render suspended From Eq. (3), we can also obtain effective density (Δρ), which is ρf
sediment concentration in mg/L. During the 24 h period, the nearly minus ρIW, and then Δρ becomes:
continuous hourly CTD and LISST-100 casts produced 22 CTD and
!
LISST profiles, of which 8 profiles were accompanied with water ρ SSC
samples at 3 h intervals. Δρ = 1− IW ð4Þ
ρp VC

3. Methods
Mikkelsen and Pejrup (2001) proposed that the mean effective
The in situ laser particle-size analyzer, LISST-100 (type B) had the density is approximately equal to the suspended sediment concen-
sampling rate of 1 Hz at the profiling mode. The size range of LISST- tration (SSC) divided by the volume concentration (VC). According to
100 (B) ranges from 1.25 μm to 250 μm and is divided into 32 size Eq. (3), the mean effective density proposed by Mikkelsen and Pejrup
classes on a logarithmic scale (Agrawal and Pottsmith, 2000). Because (2001) would be over estimated.
two different filtration methods were used in the 2004 and 2006
cruises, the particle sizes of water samples and LISST-100 were 4. Results
integrated into three size-classes, 0.7–10, 10–63, and 63–250 based
on the partition by the mesh size and the upper detecting limit of the Some calculated values of floc porosity in 2004 from Eq. (2) were
LISST. Unified data were then used to calculate floc porosity and negative. Numbers of negative floc porosity occurred mostly in the
density as follows. smallest size group (b10 μm), less frequently in 10–63 μm, and least
frequently in N63 μm size group. There were no negative values of floc
3.1. Floc porosity estimation porosity found in 2006. Subsequently, we removed negative porosity
values in further analyses. Composite (taking average of all data points
Fine-grained particles commonly aggregate into large aggregates at the same depth) plots of floc porosity and density profiles with three
in the flocculation process in estuarine and coastal environments different size-classes in station M, N, 2004 and in 2006 are shown in
(Krone, 1986). During the formation of large flocs by smaller flocs or Figs. 2 and 3, respectively. Each plot shows the profile of floc porosity
primary particles, the interstitial space inside the floc particles is filled (Fig. 2) and density (Fig. 3) in three different grain-size groups during
with vicinal seawater. The porosity of a floc (n) particle is the ratio the experiment period. In general, the depth averaged floc porosity and
of the interstitial volume (VIS) to the volume of the floc (Vf). The density profiles (indicated by diamond symbols connected with line in
interstitial volume is the difference between the volume of the Figs. 2 and 3) show a trend that larger particles have greater porosity
whole floc (Vf) and the primary particles (Vp) contained in the floc. and smaller density values. There are only 3 exceptions at 50 m depth on
The in-situ measurements of volume concentrations of 32 grain-sizes the N composite profile and at 50, 80 m depths on the M composite
by the LISST-100 represent the volumes of flocs (Vf) of these size- profile whose density was smaller (porosity was larger) in the size of
classes in a unit volume of seawater. On the other hand, the SSC b10 than in 10–63 μm. The average porosity of all analyzed data
obtained by the filtration method gives the mass (in terms of dry (including temporal and vertical data in 2004 and 2006) in particle-
weight) concentration of the flocs. Assuming the SSC is the weight of sizes, 0.7–10, 10–63, and 63–250 μm are 47.0, 64.0, 85.9%, respectively.
primary particles per unit volume (Vi), and then porosity of the floc Simultaneously, averaged densities of particle-sizes: 0.7–10, 10–63, and
(n) can be calculated by the following equation: 63–250 μm were 1.89, 1.61, 1.25 g/cm3, respectively. This result is

 consistent with the Krone's (1986) floc aggregation theory.
Vf −Vp Due to removing negative floc porosities from data, profiles M and
VC × Vi −SSC × Vi = ρp 1 SSC ð2Þ
n = VIS = Vf = = = 1− N cannot represent full complement of the variations of the floc
Vf VC × Vi ρp VC
density and porosity, but the porosity data were all positive in 2006.
The variations of the floc density and porosity were larger in the
Here ρp is the density of primary particles that is assumed 2.65 g/cm3 surface than in the bottom layer according to the profile in 2006
(could be more realistically defined in future studies). (Figs. 2 and 3). This phenomenon suggests the greater diversity of
factors influencing the properties of suspended particles including
3.2. Bulk floc density estimation sources, flocculation, and biogenic processes in the surface layer. In
addition, suspended particles in the bottom layer show less diversity
The bulk floc density estimation is analogous to floc porosity in the density and porosity. This discrepancy also agreed with Liu et al.
utilizing measured volume concentration and SSC to estimate the (2009a,c) who indicated that surface particles cannot account for all
density of flocs in each size-class. The mass of a floc particle per unit the settling particles near the canyon floor, and that the physical and
volume (Vi) is the mass of primary particles (Mp = SSC · Vi) plus the geochemical properties of particles change progressively as they
mass of the interstitial water (MIW), assuming the interstitial water is settle through the canyon.
the porous spaces in floc filled by seawater. The mass of interstitial
water is the volume of interstitial water multiplied by the density of 5. Discussion
seawater (ρIW = 1.025 g/cm3), such that the floc density is calculated
as follows: During the processing of the 2004 porosity data, some calculated
values of floc porosity were negative. Table 1 shows the percentages


VC−SSC = ρp ⋅Vi ρIW of negative floc porosities in three particle-size groups in 2004 and
Mp + MIW Mp VIW ρIW SSC⋅Vi
ρf = = + = + 2006. All floc porosities are positive in the 2006 data set. There is a
Vf Vf Vf VC⋅Vi VC⋅Vi trend that the percentage of negative values of floc porosity is

 ! significantly higher in finer than in coarser size-classes in 2004. The
SSC VC−SSC = ρp ρIW SSC ρ SSC major difference between data collected in 2004 and 2006 is that
= + = + ρIW − IW ð3Þ
VC VC VC ρp VC water samples were filtered in-situ using CatNet in 2006. Since larger
flocs are more fragile and break more easily during sampling and
! transport the filtration process in 2004 using a vacuum is likely to
ρ SSC
= ρIW + 1− IW have affected large flocs. The transport of water samples from the ship
ρp VC
to the lab is another factor that affected the 2004 data. When large
108 R.T. Hsu, J.T. Liu / Marine Geology 276 (2010) 105–109

Fig. 2. Profiles of averaged floc porosity in three particle-size groups. Close circles with colors of blue, green, and red indicate porosity profiles of sizes: b 10, 10–63, and N63 μm,
respectively. Shadow areas show ranges of positive porosities at different depths during the sampling period. The diamond symbols connected with a line represent the averaged
porosity and bars on both side of the diamond are maximum and minimum porosity at each depth.

Fig. 3. Profiles of averaged floc densities of the three particle-size groups. Close circles with colors of blue, green, and red indicate density profiles of sizes: b10, 10–63, and N63 μm,
respectively. Shadow areas show ranges of densities without erroneous data. The diamond symbols connected with a line represent the averaged density and bars on both side of the
diamond are maximum and minimum porosity at each depth.
 R.T. Hsu, J.T. Liu / Marine Geology 276 (2010) 105–109
Table 1
Percentage of calculated negative porosity in 2004, 2006 data sets.
Year of data collected 2004
Grain size 0.45–10 μm 56%
10–63 μm 42%
63–250 μm 6%
All data 34.67%
flocs break down into smaller particles, the SSC (due to erroneous dry
weight) of finer size-classes would be overestimated (Eq. (2)).
Subsequently, the volume of primary particles calculated by Eq. (2)
could be larger than the real floc volume, which was measured in-situ
by LISST-100. Therefore, the instances of negative porosity values are
higher in finer size-classes.
If there are particles larger than the detection size range of LISST-
100 (in this study, type B from 1.25 μm to 250 μm) in suspension, the
measured volume concentration will be higher in first few largest size
classes (Agrawal and Pottsmith, 2000). This is another possibility to
explain why the size-group in 63 to 250 μm has lower percentage of
the negative porosity.
In this study, we hypothesize that all measured suspended
particles are flocs and that flocs are only composed of primary
particles and seawater. However, except for flocs, there are clastic
sediments, organisms, planktons, invertebrate larvae, etc. in estuarine
and coastal water column (Turner and Millward, 2002) and in the
Gaoping Submarine Canyon (Liu et al., 2009a). No further investiga-
tion of the geochemical and biochemical properties of the particles
was conducted in this study. If the organic content in suspended
particles is not negligible, the dry weight would be overestimated.
This is because the density of organic matter is lower than 2.65 g/cm3,
which is the assumed density of primary particles in Eq. (3). Hence,
floc densities estimated in various sizes were higher than those found
in literature (Van Leussen, 1994). This method can be further refined
if the nature of the particles could be known.
6. Conclusion
Floc density and porosity are fundamental parameters in sediment
dynamic research and modeling. The traditional floc density estima-
tion is derived indirectly from settling velocity according to Stokes
law. In this study, we estimated floc density and porosity directly from
floc volume and primary particle mass. Our method provides a direct
way to estimate in-situ floc density and porosity.
In this investigation, the physical properties of suspended particles
in Gaoping Submarine Canyon are highly variable in the water
column. Our results suggest that highly dynamic environment will
change the suspended particle properties, such as mean particle size
and density. The relationships between suspended particle properties
variations and in situ hydrodynamics will be further investigated.
Acknowledgement
This research was funded by R.O.C. National Science Council under
grant nos. NSC 92-2611-M-110-013, NSC 94-2611-M-110-004, and
NSC 96-2611-M-110-011. We are grateful to Ya-Wen Huang, Joel Chu
and Fanta Hsu for their valuable assistance in the field and laboratory
work. We thank the captain and crew of R/V OR-3 for their help and
cooperation in the profiling and water sampling.
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