The Iberian and Canaries Margin including NW Africa

Abstract

The Atlantic margin off Iberia and NW Africa shows a number of sedimentary processes which have combined to create the topography and geological record seen today. The wealth of data collected here provides excellent models for interpreting the ancient geological record. Early sediment facies maps, based on 3.5 kHz profiles, concentrated on the distribution and morphology of large sediment slides on the Northwest African margin (Embley 1976; Jacobi 1976; Embley and Jacobi 1977). A series of maps were then produced that covered a larger area of the margin, and demonstrated the interaction of downslope and alongslope sedimentary processes (Jacobi and Hayes 1982, 1984, 1992). Through the 1980s the Madeira Abyssal Plain (MAP) was intensively investigated as a potential disposal area for high level radioactive waste (see references in Weaver and Thomson 1987), work which was later aban-doned in favour of onshore storage.