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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Special Volumes

Abstract


Pub. Id: A117 (1978)

First Page: 117

Last Page: 137

Book Title: SG 7: Framework, Facies, and Oil-Trapping Characteristics of the Upper Continental Margin

Article/Chapter: Gulf of Mexico Continental-Slope Sediments and Sedimentation: 2. The Concepts

Subject Group: Geologic History and Areal Geology

Spec. Pub. Type: Studies in Geology

Pub. Year: 1978

Author(s): H. O. Woodbury (2), J. H. Spotts (3), W. H. Akers (2)

Abstract:

Grain size, coarse-fraction analyses, and depositional environment are related to continuity and character of sparker reflections at the location of nine core holes drilled by Exxon, Chevron, Gulf, and Mobil on the continental slope of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Continuous sparker reflections are correlated with slowly deposited, evenly bedded sediments containing bathyal faunas. The coarse fraction is dominated by the tests of foraminifers.

Discontinuous, discordant reflections and diffractions are correlated with sediments more rapidly emplaced in the bathyal environment of the continental slope by slumping and sliding from the continental shelf. These sediments contain neritic faunas that lived on the continental shelf. Their coarse fraction is dominated by terrigenous sand grains. A large part of the volume of continental-slope sediments appears to consist of these "displaced" sediments, including an area 3 to 24 km wide and 80 km long, southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, and much of the Mississippi Fan southeast of New Orleans.

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