--> ABSTRACT: Diversity of Turbidites in Basin Floor Lobes and Channel/Levee Systems in "Deep Sea" Wedges; the Central Tertiary Basin of Western Spitsbergen, by P. Plink, D. Mellere, and R. Steel; #91021 (2010)

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Diversity of Turbidites in Basin Floor Lobes and Channel/Levee Systems in "Deep Sea" Wedges; the Central Tertiary Basin of Western Spitsbergen 

PLINK, PIRET, DONATELLA MELLERE,  and RON STEEL

Ten "turbidite" wedges have been documented within the Battfjellet formation (Eocene) of the Central Tertiary Basin of western Spitsbergen, foredeep bounded to the west by the active Tertiary fold- and thrust-belt. The turbidite wedges, which lap back onto older slope clinoforms (and sometimes even attached back to shelf deltas), have a three-fold architecture of (1) minor quantities of distal subaqueous mouth bars in the shallowest very proximal portions, (2) extensive channel and levee systems in the proximal/middle portions and (3) basin floor lobes in the oldest and distal parts. Good quality outcrops enable the recognition of a diversity of turbidites within the sand-prone basin floor lobes, ranging from massive sandstone beds with shale clast-trains deposited by gradual aggradation from steady turbidity flows, to slightly inversely graded divisions of waxing flow turbidites and to normally graded divisions of waning flow turbidites. Within the channel/levee system, where relationships between channels and levees were "walked out", channel margin environments with small-scale spill-over channels and convex upward levees with internal discordances, as well as proximal sandy and distal heterolithic divergent accretion bedsets were distinguished. The subaqueous distal mouth bar deposits associated with wave-reworked units suggesting water depths of 20-40m, whereas the remainder of the turbidite wedges reach basin-floor water depths of 200-300m. The thick channel-fill units within the channel/levee systems, as well as the channel-margin association and proximal levees are sand-prone, whereas the distal levees become heterolithic basinwards. The basin floor lobes are sand-prone and contain heterolithic turbidites only in small quantities in distal portions. 

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91021©1997 AAPG Annual Convention, Dallas, Texas.