Sediment waves on the Santa Catarina Plateau (western South Atlantic)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2020.102698Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Field of sediment waves is mapped on the Santa Catarina Plateau.

  • Zones of large, small-scale and buried mudwaves are distinguished within the field.

  • Sediment waves were formed under the influence of bottom currents.

  • Burial of sediment waves is a result of the interplay between gravity flows and bottom currents.

Abstract

High-resolution seismoacoustic and multibeam data revealed a large field of sediment waves covering the Santa Catarina Plateau on the Brazilian Southern Margin. Within the field several zones were determined: a zone of large sediment waves (up to 70 m in height), a zone of smaller sediment waves (15–30 m in height) and a zone of buried sediment waves. The correlation of the seismoacoustic and multibeam data with the results of numerical modeling of bottom current velocities showed a strong influence of bottom currents on the formation of sediment waves. The process of wave burial in the northern part of the field can be caused by the interplay between gravity flows from the continental slope and bottom currents.

Introduction

Sediment waves (or mud waves) are nearly sinusoidal sedimentary structures with different degree of asymmetry, which are one of the most comprehensively described deep-water bedforms. They can have wavelengths ranging from 0.5 to 10 km, heights typically up to 50 m (up to 150 m in the Argentine Basin), and wave crests that are often longer than 10 km (Klaus and Ledbetter, 1988; Wynn and Stow, 2002; Stow et al., 2013; Rebesco et al., 2014). Sediment waves can be related both to gravity flow and bottom current activity (Wynn and Stow, 2002). The important characteristics of sediment waves, such as dimensions, orientation, seismic structure and migration, reflect the different parameters of paleocirculation of bottom water in the region (e.g. current direction and velocity, flow structure) (Manley and Flood, 1993; Flood, 1994; Flood and Giosan, 2002). In the Argentine Basin, which is well known as one of the natural laboratories for contourite research, most of sediment waves are thought to develop under the influence of bottom currents (Flood, 1988; Klaus and Ledbetter, 1988). The analysis of a large set of lithological data, swath sonar and high-resolution seismoacoustic records, results of current meter measurements and numerical modeling (e.g. Anderson et al., 1993; Ledbetter, 1993; Segl, 1994; Hopfauf et al., 2001) allowed to reconstruct the Late Quaternary evolution of sediment waves draping the Zapiola Drift in the central part of the basin as well as to estimate the spatial and temporal variations in velocity, direction and structure of the Antarctic Bottom Water flow responsible for the mud wave formation (Flood et al., 1993; Manley and Flood, 1993; von Lom-Keil et al., 2002).

The high terrigenous supply and the dynamic oceanographic regime resulted in the formation of a wide spectrum of erosional and depositional contourite features located at different bathymetric levels of the South American passive oceanic margin and extended in some cases on the abyssal plain. The most prominent of these features are elongated mounded and plastered drifts (e.g. Ewing, Santa Catarina, Chui and Pelotas Drifts, Santos drifts) (Fig. 1a and b), contourite channels, moats and contourite terraces (Duarte and Viana, 2007; Hernandez-Molina et al., 2009, 2010; Preu et al., 2013; Jeck et al., 2019). Sediment waves were previously recorded in seismoacoustic and multibeam profiles on the Argentinian slope, northern exit of the Vema Channel, Rio Grande Rise, Santa Catarina and São Paulo Plateaus (Bleil et al., 1993; Duarte and Viana, 2007; Gruetzner et al., 2014; Lisniowski et al., 2017; Jeck et al., 2019; Levchenko et al., 2020), but those on the Santa Catarina Plateau were not described and studied in detail. The aim of this work is to investigate the morphology, acoustic structure and distribution of sediment waves on this plateau in relationship to the Quaternary history of bottom circulation in this region.

Section snippets

Brazilian Southern Margin morphology and geological setting

The Brazilian Southern Margin (except the São Paulo Plateau) is a typical passive margin (e.g. Mascle, 1976; Chang et al., 1992), resulting from the breakup of Gondwana during the Mesozoic and the subsequent separation of the South American and African continents. The margin geomorphology is characterized by a wide continental shelf with the depth of the shelf break varying between 200 and 500 m. The continental slope is interrupted by plateaus, terraces, slide deposits, deep-sea fan and some

Bathymetry

The physiographic map of the Brazil oceanic margin (scale 1:1883927) (Diretoria de Hidrografia e Navegação, Marinha do Brasil, 2017) is used as the geomorphological background for the study area. This map was prepared by the Navy Center of Hydrography of the Brazil Directorate of Hydrography and Navigation (Diretoria de Hidrografia e Navegação, Marinha do Brasil), and the map comprises LEPLAC data (Brazilian Continental Shelf Survey Plan), nautical charts, ETOPO global relief model and General

Multibeam data

The available multibeam data provide information about bottom topography between the northern slope of the Torres High and the linear valley of the Florianopolis fracture zone. Despite some noise and artefacts in the data sediment waves can be clearly distinguished (Fig. 2b). Sediment wave crests are generally oriented almost parallel to the regional contours. Following these contours the wave orientation changes counterclockwise from west to east. Most of the wave crests demonstrate

Origin of sediment waves

It is very difficult to distinguish between sediment waves formed under the influence of bottom and turbidity currents other than by context (McCave, 2017). Sediment waves developed by turbidity currents are often found in turbidite fans, channel levees, high sinuous channels or channel mouths (Faugères et al., 2002; Lee et al., 2002; Normark et al., 2002). They usually have a wavelength between 0.75 and 2.5 km and often demonstrate regular upslope migration (Normark et al., 2002; Wynn and

Conclusions

A large field of sediment waves covering the major part of the Santa Catarina Plateau was revealed in the northern part of the Argentine Basin. Three zones were determined within the wave field: 1) a zone of large sediment waves (up to 70 m in height, up to 6 km in wavelength), on the slope of the Torres High; 2) a zone of smaller sediment waves (15–30 m in height, 2–4 km in wave length); 3) a zone of partly buried (draped) and fully buried sediment waves, in the northern part of the field.

Author statement

Dmitrii Borisov: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing, Visualization. Dmitry Frey: Investigation, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing, Visualization, Methodology, Oleg Levchenko: Investigation, Writing - Original Draft.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

The study was partly supported by the Russian Science Foundation, grant 18-17-00227 (seismic data analysis), and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant 19-57-60001 (numerical modeling). The author would like to thank Arsen Lazursky (BCG Moscow, Russia) for proofreading this article. The present manuscript profited greatly from the suggestions of Michelangelo Martini, Prof. Alejandro Tassone and an anonymous reviewer.

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