With this award they have an opportunity to pull together an unparalleled understanding of one of the world's most productive water bodies, to literally map the way it functions. We would not have the same physics if river flow were constant. Each spring, river waters cascading into the Chesapeake encounter salty tidal waters coming up Bay from the ocean. Pulses help set up physical structures, such as fronts - areas where, as with weather fronts, temperature and density differences create dynamic transition zones. One kind of front forms sharp boundaries that result when different water masses meet, lighter layers often lying atop denser layers.
Fronts come in different sizes and can last for varying lengths of time.
A decade ago we didn't know enough about nutrient cycles or primary production to reasonably attempt this. The maximum turbidity zone serves as the scene for intense chemical and physical activity in a tributary or estuary, with some river-borne particles settling out and others becoming entrained in the frontal zone. In the Chesapeake Bay, the most notable maximum turbidity zone occurs north of the Bay Bridge where the largest influx of freshwater in the Bay flows from the Susquehanna River, entraining sediments, algae and other particles. The researchers hypothesize that seasonal pulses of nutrients from land, air and ocean accumulate in frontal zones and set in motion the processes that produce algal blooms. Their belief is, according to Boynton, that such pulsing systems have an inherently high capability for secondary production.