Lf. Pratson et al., SUBMARINE-CANYON INITIATION BY DOWNSLOPE-ERODING SEDIMENT FLOWS - EVIDENCE IN LATE CENOZOIC STRATA ON THE NEW-JERSEY CONTINENTAL-SLOPE, Geological Society of America bulletin, 106(3), 1994, pp. 395-412
Multibeam bathymetry and seismic reflection profiles of the New Jersey
continental slope reveal a series of abandoned and now-buried submari
ne canyons that have apparently influenced the development of modern c
anyons. The buried canyons are infilled along nine slope-wide unconfor
mities separating upper-middle Miocene to Pleistocene sediments that t
hin downslope. Canyons infilled during the Miocene occur in the southw
est part of the study area where Miocene sediments are thickest. Other
canyons, infilled during the Pleistocene, occur in the northeast part
of the study area where Pleistocene sediments are thickest. When foll
owed downslope, each of the buried canyons arrives at a confluence wit
h a modern canyon, usually where the downslope-tapering sediment cover
has failed to smooth over the buried canyon, leaving a sea-floor trou
gh. Seaward of the confluences, the modem canyons have exhumed the bur
ied canyons and use the older valleys to reach the base of the slope.
Re-use of the lower slope reach of the buried canyons appears to have
begun when the sea-floor troughs over the buried canyons captured sedi
ment flows initiated along the upper slope and shelf break and confine
d them to follow the former path of the buried canyons to the base of
the slope. The downslope erosion caused by the sediment flows is propo
sed to have initiated the modern canyons, which eventually excavated a
nd deepened the former routes of the buried canyons seaward of the sit
es of sediment flow capture. The occurrence of buried canyons where st
rata thickens alongslope suggests that infilling of the buried canyons
occurred seaward of shelf-edge depocenters. The heightened sediment i
nput to the slope in these regions may have also led to the initiation
and growth of modern-day canyons. The temporal relation between moder
n canyon formation, sediment supply, and sea level, however, remains t
o be established.