Cynthia Bluteau

Cynthia Bluteau began her PhD at The University of Western Australia in 2008.

Her project aims to create an understanding of the physical interactions between bottom boundary layer processes and internal waves dynamics at various timescales and in diverse coastal regions.

These physical processes are of interest to the oil and gas industry for the design of pipelines and offshore platforms, particularly since large bottom currents are often generated from the steepening of internal waves travelling to the shore.

Three field experiments were carried out on the Australian North-West shelf at Ningaloo Reef, North Rankin (100 kilometres offshore from Dampier) and the Browse Basin.

The North Rankin site was deemed to be a likely internal wave generation zone based on previous field monitoring programs and numerical modelling. Four weeks of high temporal and spatial data collected at a 400-metre depth will be used to ascertain the turbulence over the spring-neap tidal cycle.

At Ningaloo Reef, the purpose of the experiment was to document the turbulence and fluxes of the location where the waves propagate.

Information on currents, waves and temperature has been collected from the Browse Basin area and two additional moorings will be deployed for two months to collect turbulent information.

Cynthia’s research is part of WAMSI’s Node 6 oceanography projects and her supervisors are Professor Greg Ivey, who leads WAMSI's Node 6 projects, and Dr Nicole Jones.

She has presented her PhD work at the Inaugural Conference on Marine Science in Tropical, Temperate and Southern Oceans held by the Australian National Network in Marine Science at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. She has also presented at WAMSI’s Node 6 Marine Science for offshore and Coastal Engineering symposium held at UWA in August 2009.