Chaotic advection is complicated, sensitive material motion generated by a smooth velocity field, often even when the Eulerian flow is periodic and simple. Transverse intersections of stable manifolds and unstable manifolds create stretching, folding and lobe transport across former separatrices. Incompressible flow preserves parcel area and advected scalar values in the absence of diffusion, so chaotic motion can create fine filaments without independently producing molecular homogenization.
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