Chaotic mixing

In chaos theory and fluid dynamics, chaotic mixing is a process by which flow tracers develop into complex fractals under the action of a fluid flow. The flow is characterized by an exponential growth of fluid filaments. Even very simple flows, such as the blinking vortex, or finitely resolved wind fields can generate exceptionally complex patterns from initially simple tracer fields.

The phenomenon is still not well understood and is the subject of much current research.