Summary Information for Field Activity 1978-023-FA

Area of Operations: Mid-Atlantic outer continental shelf and slope, United States, North America, North Atlantic

Dates: August 18, 1978 to September 04, 1978

Chief scientist: Jim Robb

Objectives: Study slumping or mass movements of sediments on the continental slope using high-resolution geophysical profiling gear.

Type of Activity: Seismic profiling;

Information to be derived: Sea floor map; Morphology;

Summary: Slumping and mass downslope sediment movement occurs widely over the continental slope at small scale (small thickness, small displacement) as well as large scale. Individual slump features, although readily identifiable as large masses on individual seismic profiles, may have small lateral extent or may change considerably in their form and location on the slope within the 0.5 nautical mile spacing of our profiles. Continental slope topography cannot be described by dip (offshelf) profiles. Strike (longslope) lines show much rougher topography on the upper continental slope than a series of dip lines would imply. Rough and smooth upper slope topography give the same appearance on dip lines. Sidescan sonar data may show a grain of small (several meter) features paralleling the continental slope. Airgun: 2050 km; Minisparker: 2100 km; 3.5 kHz: 2100 km; Sidescan: 22 km.

Contact: Jim Robb (jrobb@usgs.gov)

InfoBank: uses the identifier I-71-78-MC. Visit this site for more information.

Related Links:

- Download 78023.kml to view this field activity in Google Earth

Platform Info:

ISELIN, COLUMBUS

Publications resulting from these data

Chaytor, Jason D., ten Brink, Uri S., Solow, Andrew R., and Andrews, Brian D.,2009, Size distribution of submarine landslides along the U.S. Atlantic margin: Marine Geology, v. 264, no. 1-2: p. 16-27. (Also available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2008.08.007)

Twichell, David C., Chaytor, Jason D., ten Brink, Uri S., and Buczkowski, Brian,2009, Morphology of late Quaternary submarine landslides along the U.S. Atlantic continental margin: Marine Geology, v. 264, no. 1-2: p. 4-15. (Also available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2009.01.009)

ten Brink, U.S., Barkan, R., Andrews, B.D., and Chaytor, J.D.,2009, Size distributions and failure initiation of submarine and subaerial landslides: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 287, no. 1-2: p. 31-42. (Also available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2009.07.031)

Geist, Eric L., Lynett, Patrick J., and Chaytor, Jason D.,2009, Hydrodynamic modeling of tsunamis from the Currituck landslide: Marine Geology, v. 264, no. 1-2: p. 41-52. (Also available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2008.09.005)

Robb, James M.,1980, High-resolution seismic-reflection profiles collected by the R/V COLUMBUS ISELIN, Cruise CI 7807-1, in the Baltimore Canyon Outer Continental Shelf area, offshore New Jersey: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 80-935, 3 p.. (Available as a PDF version)

Download Adobe Acrobat Reader