Drop spreading and resorbtion on gel surfaces*

We have studied the dynamics of liquid drops on agar gels, using a visualisation method which captures the evolution of the free surface. A first remarquable observation is that drops of water deposited on the surface do not spread, although the gel consists of up to 99.7\% water and as low as 0.3\% agarose. Instead, the drop slowly de-wets and resorbs into the gel which swells locally. If the deposited drop contains surfactants, the dynamics is very different. A sharp circular swelling front develops and progressively invades the whole surface. We study the propagation of this front as a function of surfactant and agarose concentration, and compare its typical properties to similar fronts appearing during mass swarming events of bacterial colonies under the same conditions. The observations reveal the complex nature of gel surface physico-chemistry and its aging, and may be related to recent friction measurements at gel interfaces.