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Deep Marine
Deep marine depositional systems are here defined as environments situated beyond the shelf-slope break. They are dominated by resedimentation processes, particularly sediment gravity flows, and comprise a series of inter-related subenvironments often synonymous with deposition by turbidity currents and debris flows. Base of slope locations and vast submarine fans act as sediment sinks that have complex links to many of the major depositional systems on Earth. Environments, processes and spatial evolution are poorly understood, as are the links to other depositional systems via basic hydrodynamics, tectonics, climate change and sea level variations.
The following links offer a comprehensive review of deep marine processes, the environments where these processes operate, and the controls on the temporal and spatial evolution of these complex systems using sequence stratigraphic principles. This module also provides a comprehensive list of references that are pertinent to the deep marine setting.
Deep Marine Settings
Deep marine depositional processes
There are a number of processes which transoprt large volumes of seidment into deep water from an original shallow water setting. They comprise a complex suite, much of it a continuum, between the end-members of dilute turbidity currents and subaqueous slides. All sedimentation depends upont he down-slope component of gravity acting upon material stored on or moving down a slope (After Stow et al., 1996 In Reading, 1996).
Deep marine sequence stratigrapy
A summary of deep marine sequence stratigraphy is available here.
