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Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 1995; v. 90; p. 159-177;
DOI: 10.1144/GSL.SP.1995.090.01.10
© 1995 Geological Society of London

The influence of glacigenic sedimentation on slope-apron development on the continental margin off Northwest Britain

M. S. Stoker

British Geological Survey, Murchison House, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3LA, UK

The Hebrides and West Shetland shelves were extensively glaciated on several occasions during the mid- to late Pleistocene, with grounded ice locally reaching the shelf edge and depositing vast amounts of sediment directly on to the adjacent slopes. On the Hebrides Slope, the discrete, slope-front depocentre of the Sula Sgeir Fan has accumulated a thick (200 m) succession of interbedded debris-flow diamictons, turbidite sands and muds. This contrasts with a ‘between fan’ area to the south, where a thinner (< 100 m) sediment drape of glaciomarine ice-rafted and suspended sediment, deposited partly under the influence of alongslope currents, is preserved. On the West Shetland Slope, the slope-apron may consist of several coalescing wedges of sediment which form a laterally more extensive, albeit thinner (up to 100 m) succession of mass flow deposits. On both slopes the glacigenic deposits can be separated into discrete mass-flow packages bounded by thin, occasionally slope-wide, prograding clinoforms. Accumulation of these packages was episodic and related to specific rapid phases of downslope sedimentation, concomitant with maximum glaciation and glacio-eustatic lowstand. The thin clinoform units reflect intervals of reduced sediment supply to the slope. The ‘between fan’ area of the Hebrides Slope has been a region of relatively persistent sediment bypass.

Analagous deposits preserved on other mid to high-latitude continental margins, such as the East Greenland, Barents Sea and East Canadian margins, highlight the regional importance of glacigenic processes to late Cenozoic slope-apron development in the North Atlantic region. In particular, they demonstrate the influence that climate can have on the stratigraphical and sedimentological record.





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