Abstract
The Valencia Fan developed as the distal fill of a deep-sea valley detached from the continental slope and the main sedimentary source. This fan evolves downbasin from channelled to transitional and unchannelled morphological areas. High resolution sidescan sonar records show depositional bedforms on the valley floor of the channelled area and a progressive transversal gradation from depositional to erosional bedforms in the transitional area. This transversal gradation may be due to the effect of the Coriolis force on sediments transported through the Valencia Valley and to the lateral inputs of sediment flows from the Gulf of Lyon continental margin. Bedforms shown in this work include trains of starved ripples and dunes, sand ribbons, and fields of megaflutes.
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Acknowledgments
Data were acquired thanks to various projects. UNESCO and the European Science Foundation (ESF) provided important financial contributions. Funding was also provided by the Joint Committee of Science and Technology of the US Spain Treaty of Friendship, and the U.S. National Science Foundation (grant OCE 81-18069). The officers and crew of the R/V Gelendzhik and the R/V Robert D. Conrad are gratefully acknowledged. We also thank M.K. Ivanov, W.B.F. Ryan, A. Maldonado and N.H. Kenyon.
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Palanques, A. (2017). Bedforms on the Distal Valencia Channel and Turbidite System. In: Guillén, J., Acosta, J., Chiocci, F., Palanques, A. (eds) Atlas of Bedforms in the Western Mediterranean. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33940-5_43
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33940-5_43
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