Specific features of the upper sedimentary cover and slump structures in the NW Pacific and the Bering Sea based on seismoacoustic profiling data

Abstract

The authors studied geology-geophysical data that had been obtained during German RV «Sonne» Cruise in NW Pacific organized in frames of the Russian-German Project KALMAR («Kurile-Kamchatka and Aleutian Marginal sea-island arc systems: geodynamic and climate interaction in space and time»). The profiling was carried out using PARASOUND P70 system, including narrow-beam system and sub-bottom profiler. The study showed that besides undisturbed sedimentation, landside processes are widely spread in open areas of the ocean and the Bering Sea as well as deposits caused by strong submarine currents. Landslides were revealed on the slopes of the Emperor Ridge in the NW Pacific and the Shirshov Ridge submarine mountains, in canyons near Eastern Kamchatka coasts and apparently in many other areas.

Keywords

• North-Western Pacific
• sedimentary cover
• seismoacoustic profiling
• landslides