Sedimentary evolution of a new turbidite system in tbe South Atlantic: The Agadir turbidite system

The Agadir turbidite system is located on the Morocco continental margin and the Agadir Basin (South Atlantic), and extends from 200 m to 4300 m water depth. Its establishement seems to have occured during the Oligocene, when the Agadir Canyon was formed. This canyon represents the main valley that feeds the turbidite system. The sediments transported through the Agadir Canyon deposited on the Agadir Basin, developing canyon, channel, overbank and depositional lobe deposits. From the Oligocene to present, this turbidite system has migrated laterally being controlled by the (paleo)topography and the local tectonics. Its vertical sedimentary succession is clearly retrogradational. This retrogration is interpreted as the result of the interplay between tectonics and climat

Sedimentary dynamics of the submarine channels on the Ebro continental slope and base-of-slope (NW Mediterranean Sea) as revealed by HR acoustic imagery

A comprehensive data set of the seafloor relief and superficial sedimentary cover on the Ebro progradational continental slope, NW Mediterranean Sea, reveals that its Late Quaternary building results from complex interrelationships between processes ranging from channel abandonment to incision of inner minor courses, from retrogressive erosion and channel capture to levee cutting and new channel opening, from channel wall sliding to shelf-edge and channel spillover. These processes succeed ones to the others both in time and space conforming a canibalistic frame where the balance between destructive and constructive processes is finally favourable to the last. They result in the formation of the channel-levee complexes characteristic of the Ebro continental slope and base-of-slop

Extension in the Western Mediterranean

43 pages, 31 figuresThe Miocene is an essential period in the configuration of the present-day relief of the Betic Cordillera and the South Iberian continental margin, which determined the structure and evolution of the Neogene sedimentary basins (Fig. 3.1). The crustal thinning processes that occurred during the early and middle Miocene, after the main metamorphic events, generated major low-angle normal faults that separate the main metamorphic complexes. Although a wide variety of tectonic models have been proposed for this setting, most of them are related to delamination or to subduction with associated roll-back. During the late Miocene, the relatively flat and low relief of the continental crust facilitated the accumulation of sedimentary deposits, which are interlayered with volcanic rocks in the eastern Betic Cordillera and Alborán Sea. The continuous Eurasian-African convergence finally produced regional uplift since the late Miocene and the development of large late regional E-W to NE-SW folds, which determine the main relief