Internal structure and seismic facies of the deep-water sediment drifts off northern Graham Land, Antarctic Peninsula: Results from a very high-resolution survey

Abstract

High-resolution Bottom Parametric Source profiles have revealed details of the sedimentary structure of the upper 150 ms of the sediment drifts off the Pacific margin of Graham Land, Antarctic Peninsula. These profiles show that the dominant process is hemipelagic sedimentation, although instability processes are also important, as shown by the widespread presence of transparent, chaotic and semi-transparent acoustic facies. These new data are relevant to the evaluation of the palaeoenvironmental potential of the sediment drifts and show that the amount of remobilised sediment is significant in some of the drifts.