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Submarine Fans and Their Channels, Levees, and Lobes

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Submarine Geomorphology

Part of the book series: Springer Geology ((SPRINGERGEOL))

Abstract

Submarine fans are complex morphological features that develop on the continental slope, rise and abyssal plain, normally at the mouths of submarine canyons. They are constructed principally from the deposits of sediment gravity flows (mainly turbidity currents and debris flows) as terrigenous and shallow marine sediment is redistributed into deeper water. In this chapter we focus on the most important building blocks of submarine fans: leveed submarine channels and the submarine lobes they feed. Mass transport deposits are also important components of many submarine fans; they are described in the Chapter on “Submarine Canyons and Gullies”. Submarine channels are the most noticeable geomorphic features on submarine fans, linking net erosional elements like canyons and gullies to net depositional elements like submarine lobes. They develop through both erosional and depositional processes, and have straight to highly sinuous planform geometries. Where they are flanked by aggradational levees or are entrenched into the seabed, they provide stable pathways through which sediment is transported and partitioned into different fan settings. Coarse-grained sediment commonly accumulates on the floors or at the mouths of submarine channels; finer-grained sediment preferentially accumulates on channel banks and on adjacent aggradational levees. In this chapter we describe the wide range of morphological features recognised on the surfaces of submarine fans, and the physical processes that shape the seabed in areas where submarine channels, levees, and lobes develop.

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Acknowledgements

Our sincere appreciation goes to Marie Picot and Nathalie Babonneau for providing the seafloor images from Zaire Fan and to Peter Clift for permission to use the Indus fan data. We thank Andrea Fildani for helpful comments.

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  1. Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

    Mark E. Deptuck

  2. Chevron Energy Technology Company, Houston, TX, USA

    Zoltán Sylvester

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  1. Mark E. Deptuck
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Correspondence to Mark E. Deptuck .

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  1. Marine Geology & Seafloor Surveying Group, Department of Geosciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malta, Msida, Malta

    Aaron Micallef

  2. Institute of Geosciences, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

    Sebastian Krastel

  3. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Università degli Studi Milano Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Alessandra Savini

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© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

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Deptuck, M.E., Sylvester, Z. (2018). Submarine Fans and Their Channels, Levees, and Lobes. In: Micallef, A., Krastel, S., Savini, A. (eds) Submarine Geomorphology. Springer Geology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57852-1_15

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