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Geological interpretation of combined SEABEAM, GLORIA and seismic data from Porto and Vigo Seamounts, Iberian continental margin

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Abstract

Long-range sidescan sonar (GLORIA) data over Porto and Vigo Seamounts collected in 1978 has been re-interpreted in the light of SEABEAM bathymetric surveys conducted in 1982. The application of quantitative bathymetric information enables the interpreter to allow for artefacts inherent in the GLORIA data and to separate topography-related primary backscattering variations on the sonographs from more subtle changes that result from textural, slope and outcrop effects. The distinctions are made easier when slant-range corrected GLORIA data are available.

Use of the combined survey data to precisely locate seismic profiling tracks and to identify likely areas of outcrop has allowed refined geological maps of the seamounts to be drawn and regional fault trends detected. The overall outline of the seamounts appears strongly fault-controlled.

Porto and Vigo Seamounts are made up of the same geological formations and have had a similar structural history since their uplift as continental fault blocks in the Late Cretaceous to Middle Eocene period. Ravines that dissect the presumably lithified scarps bounding the seamounts may be relict features but still appear to control sediment input to gulley and channel systems in the surrounding topography. Sedimentary ridges associated with the seamounts represent anomalously thick sequences of post-Eocene material and probably result from interaction of downslope sedimentary processes and contour-following boundary currents.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Géodynamique Sous-Marine du Cerov, Université Paris VI, B.P. 48, 06230, Villefranche-Sur-Mer, France

    Denis Mougenot

  2. Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, Wormley, GU8 5UB, Godalming, Surrey, UK

    Robert B. Kidd & R. Guy Rothwell

  3. Departement de Géologie Dynamique, Université Paris VI, 4 Place Jussieu, 75 230, Paris, Cedex 05, France

    Alain Mauffret & Jean-René Vanney

  4. Institut de Géographie, Université Paris IV, 191 rue Saunt-Jacques, 75 005, Paris, France

    Hervé Regnauld

Authors
  1. Denis Mougenot
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  2. Robert B. Kidd
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  3. Alain Mauffret
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  4. Hervé Regnauld
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  5. R. Guy Rothwell
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  6. Jean-René Vanney
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Additional information

Contribution No. 274 from the ‘Groupe d'Etude de la Marge Continentale’ (ERA 605).

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Mougenot, D., Kidd, R.B., Mauffret, A. et al. Geological interpretation of combined SEABEAM, GLORIA and seismic data from Porto and Vigo Seamounts, Iberian continental margin. Mar Geophys Res 6, 329–363 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00286249

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