Abstract
Two Pleistocene mass transport deposits (MTDs), with volumes of thousands of km3, have been identified from multi-channel seismic data in the abyssal plain at the front of the Barbados accretionary prism. Estimated sediment volumes for these MTDs are likely underestimated due to limited seismic coverage. In this work, we suggest that these MTDs are comparable in size to large submarine landslides as reported in the literature. These MTDs lie on the vicinity of two major oceanic ridges, the Barracuda Ridge and the Tiburon Rise. It is also suggested in this work that the MTDs come from seismicity associated with the formation of the Barracuda Ridge or the Barbados accretionary prism; however, triggering mechanisms involved in their formation remain uncertain. The present study discusses the potential causal factors accounting for the formation of these MTDs.
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Acknowledgments
The authors sincerely thank Benoit Loubrieu for multibeam processing and Alan Evans for providing additional seismic profiles . We thank the government of Barbados and notably its ministry of Foreign Affairs to have given permission to use their seismic reflection data in this paper. Alan Evens of the National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton, facilitated the access to this data set. We strongly thank Jean-Yves Collot, Christian Beck and Lorena Moscardelli for their useful suggestions, which helped to improve the manuscript.
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Pichot, T., Lafuerza, S., Patriat, M., Roest, W. (2016). Pleistocene Mass Transport Deposits Off Barbados Accretionary Prism (Lesser Antilles). In: Lamarche, G., et al. Submarine Mass Movements and their Consequences. Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research, vol 41. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20979-1_32
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20979-1_32
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