Hi,
This keyword represents the shear velocity value under which deposition occurs. You can have a look to the user manual (sections 6.1 or 6.4.2).
You're right, a default value of 1000m/s is large, but always allows the deposition (deposition flux then computed as settling velocity times mud concentration according to the Krone/Partheniades formula) which will mainly be instantaneously re-suspended according to the associated critical erosion shear stress (lower). This why this usual "large" value is set by default.
You can find a lot of literature on this topic.
In a first approach, you can see it in the same way that for the erosion:
Shear velocity is computed as sqrt(shear_stress/rho_eau).
Critical values of shear stress roughly range from 0.1 N/m2 (for fresh deposit) to 1 N/m2 or more (for consolidated mud) that lead to critical shear velocities of a few cm/s.
Regards,
Laurent