Submarine mass movements, such as those which occur in all environments in every ocean of the world, are
widely distributed across the Iberian continental margins. A lack of consistent data from various areas around
the Iberian Peninsula makes it difficult to precisely understand their role in the sedimentary record. However,
all the studies carried out over the past two decades reveal that they are a recurrent and widespread sedimentary
process that may represent a significant geohazard. The majority of submarine mass movements
observed in both the Mediterranean and Atlantic margins of the Iberian Peninsula have been generically identified
as Mass Transport Deposits, but debris flows, slides, slumps and turbidites are common. Only a few
remarkable examples involve huge volumes of sediment covering large areas (such as ~500 km3 and ~6x104
km2 ), but more moderate deposits (<200 km2 ) are frequently found on the seafloor or embedded in the sedimentary
sequences, building margins and basins