Convection, Heaping, and Cracking in Vertically Vibrated Granular Slurries

We address the situation in which vibration is applied to thin layers of granular material with water filling the pore space, but with air above. Beyond a critical drive parameter we observe heap-shaped convecting domains of nontrivial topology, which exhibit cracks as the forcing amplitude is further increased. We summarize these results in a phase diagram, understand the onset of the convecting heaps as a manifestation of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability for fluids, and measure the response of isolated convecting structures.