Three-dimensional simulation of the thermohaline-driven buoyancy of a brine parcel

We provide three-dimensional numerical simulations of the thermohaline-driven buoyancy of a brine “parcel” immersed in an initially homogeneous porous medium of hydrological interest. Our purpose is to improve our understanding of the thermohaline flow through the 3D visualization of the evolving patterns generated by the distributions of brine, temperature, and fluid density in the porous medium. We propose a possible physical interpretation of our results, which are obtained within the approximations usually employed in the context of density- and temperature-driven flow.