| Titre | Slope instability on a shallow contourite-dominated continental margin, southeastern Grand Banks, eastern Canada |
| Auteur | Rashid, H; MacKillop, K; Sherwin, J; Piper, D J W; Marche, B; Vermooten, M; Oxford, B |
| Source | Marine Geology vol. 339, 2017 p. 203-215, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2017.01.001 (Accès ouvert) |
| Année | 2017 |
| Séries alt. | Secteur des sciences de la Terre, Contribution externe 20160106 |
| Éditeur | Elsevier BV |
| Document | publication en série |
| Lang. | anglais |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2017.01.001 |
| Media | papier; en ligne; numérique |
| Formats | pdf |
| Province | Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador |
| SNRC | 1; 2; 10N; 10O; 11B; 11G; 11I; 11J; 11O; 11P; 12A; 12B; 12G; 12H |
| Lat/Long OENS | -60.0000 -45.0000 50.0000 40.0000 |
| Sujets | dépôts glaciaires; elements glaciaires; dépôts de coulée de débris; coulées de débris; stabilité des pentes; glissements de pentes; transport sous-marin; talus continental; profils sismiques; carottages
par piston; sédimentologie; géologie marine |
| Illustrations | location maps; bathymetric profiles; seismic profiles; tables; formulae; drillhole logs; graphs; core logs |
| Programme | Géoscience pour la sécurité publique, Géo-risques marins |
| Résumé | (disponible en anglais seulement)
Submarine sediment failures and related mass-transport deposits (MTDs) are widespread on the eastern Canadian continental slope settings and in general, have
been related to ice sheets crossing the outer shelf and upper slope. The southeastern Grand Banks margin was not glaciated in the last 105 years and has a deep shelf break. As a result, the upper continental slope consists principally of sediment
transported from the north by the Labrador Current. High-resolution seismic profiles and 10-m long piston cores show widespread sediment failure and mass-transport deposits in a plastered contourite drift from 500¿1,000 m water depth. This study
documents the stratigraphy of the past 48,000 years and the record of sediment failure events. Heinrich layers H1 to H5 have been recognized from distinctive petrology, physical properties, and bulk geochemistry and are constrained by numerous
14C-AMS dates. The geotechnical analysis shows that the latest Quaternary sediment section is mildly underconsolidated, perhaps related to high sedimentation rates (up to 0.5 m/ka) enhanced by some leakage of deep fluids. Nevertheless, factor of
safety calculations using Su/P0 and friction angles from triaxial testing suggest the slope is statically stable up to gradients of 9°. Atterberg limit measurements of silty contourite sediments indicate susceptibility to liquefaction under cyclic
loading. Regionally, there is evidence that synchronous failure occurs over many tens of kilometres of the slope, probably as a result of rare passive margin earthquakes. These shallow water contourite deposits have a higher sand and coarse silt
content, much less biogenic material, and more rapid variations in sediment and geotechnical properties than those of the deep-water equivalents, all of which make them more susceptible to sediment failure. |
| Résumé | (Résumé en langage clair et simple, non publié)
Le présent document décrit des glissements sous-marins qui sont survenus il y a environ 20 000 et 40 000 ans sur le talus sud-est des Grands
Bancs, une zone où se déroulent des activités d¿exploration pétrolière. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 299008 |
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