Thermohaline Instability and Salt Fingers in a Porous Medium

Abstract
An extension of the analysis of Nield is made to more completely characterize the onset of convection in an infinite horizontal porous medium stratified by temperature and concentration. Comparisons are made with thermohaline convection in Newtonian fluids. Major differences lie in the concentration Rayleigh number dependence of the wavenumber at the marginal state of overstability and the dependence of the horizontal wavenumber in the “salt finger” region of stationary convection on both temperature and concentration Rayleigh numbers. Suggestions of geological applications and laboratory verification using a Hele-Shaw cell are presented.

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