Significant research has gone into sediment gravity flows due to the hazards that they pose when dealing with slope stability. The benefits of studying turbidity currents have become clear and profitable. Therefore, a new industry of locating areas of both modern and ancient turbidites has evolved. A modern method of detecting turbidites is to map the landscape of margins on the sub-sea floor. This helps to determine possible depositional areas of turbidity currents and landslide triggering mechanisms thus preventing some of the risk associated with studying turbidity currents.
Turbidity currents flow because the sediment water mixture is denser than surrounding water.
Turbidity currents can either move as surges or as steady uniform flows depending upon what initiated the density current. Seismic activity, high deposition rates during river floods, and oversteepened delta fronts can generate surge turbidity currents. This initiation causes turbulence in the water that leads to the entrainment of sediment particles. As the density current moves down-slope it picks up more sediment, eroding away substrate while increasing in velocity. As a surge fully develops it moves into three main parts, the head, body, and tail.