What is it about?
We use cutting-edge technology to produce high-resolution seafloor and shallow subsurface images of a complex set of adjacent deep-sea channels in ~1000 meters water depth, offshore central California. We find a channel that shifted position through time in punctuated steps.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Our study of a channel system offshore central California provides an important example and potential analog for deep-sea channels in other locations without high-resolution imaging. Data collected with the MBARI AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) allow us to resolve fine-scale morphologies and stratigraphy that reveal a channel shifting position laterally in punctuated steps associated with channel incision (erosion). Our findings differ from conceptual models of channel migration through gradual lateral accretion, similar to rivers on land.
Perspectives
I conducted this research as part of my PhD in the Stanford Project on Deep-water Depositional Systems (SPODDS) research group with S.A. Graham and in collaboration with researchers at MBARI (C.K. Paull, D.W. Caress), and Chevron ETC (A. Fildani, T. McHargue). Check out sister publications on the Lucia Chica dataset in Geology: https://goo.gl/7fTfyq in Sedimentology: https://goo.gl/xzfAJZ in Marine and Petroleum Geology: doi: 10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2012.03.00
Katherine L Maier
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Punctuated Deep-Water Channel Migration: High-Resolution Subsurface Data from the Lucia Chica Channel System, Offshore California, U.S.A, Journal of Sedimentary Research, January 2012, Society for Sedimentary Geology,
DOI: 10.2110/jsr.2012.10.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
