Deep-Water Depositional Systems

This course introduces the sedimentary processes and deposits that occur along continental margins and in the deep sea: deposits generated by gravity-driven processes (turbidites and submarine landslides), current-related deposits (contourites), pelagic and hemipelagic sedimentation, and cold-water coral mounds. It provides an overview of the processes that control sedimentation in deep-marine environments (sediment supply, sea-level fluctuations, tectonics, oceanographic processes, productivity…). The lectures present the main criteria to identify deep-water sediments based on sediment architecture and sedimentary facies from different data-sets (seismic data, multibeam bathymetry, cores, well-logs…).

-Recognise the typical location and characteristics of the different types of sedimentary deposits in deep-water environments
-Understand the processes at the origin of deep-water sedimentary deposits
-Understand the factors controlling sedimentation in deep-marine environments

The mark of the exam will represent 80 % of the total module mark.

written exam

1) Pickering, K.T., Hiscott, R.N., 2016. Deep marine systems: processes, deposits, environments, tectonics and sedimentation. Wiley, Chichester, 672 pp.
2) Hsü, K.J. 2004. Physics of sedimentology. Springer, Berlin, 240 pp.
3) Murray, R., Wheeler, A., Freiwald, A., Cairn, S., 2009. Cold-Water Corals: The Biology and Geology of Deep-Sea Coral Habitats. Cambridge University Press.

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