On interfacial transition conditions in two phase gravity flow

A layer of ice and sediment is modelled as a mixture of two nonlinear, very viscous, constant density fluids interacting mechanically via Darcy- and Pick-type forces. An inclined layer of this mixture overlain by a layer of ice modelled as a viscous fluid is considered with boundary conditions of no-slip or viscous sliding at the base and no stress at the free surface. The interface is treated as a singular surface across which the jump conditions of mass and momentum for the constituents are assumed to hold. Furthermore, because the components are viscous fluids, a kinematic condition for the continuity of the tangential velocity is formulated. The momentum jump conditions involve surface production terms requiring additional surfacial constitutive relations.We show that the posed physical problem admits a mathematical solution only in the case that the interface momentum production is non-zero.Dedicated to Hans Roethlisberger on the occasion of his seventieth birthday.