Deep slope currents and suspended particle fluxes in and around the Foix submarine canyon (NW Mediterranean)

Deep slope currents and particulate matter concentrations were studied on the Barcelona continental margin in and around the Foix submarine canyon from May 1993 to April 1994. This year-long moored experiment revealed that near-bottom slope currents are strongly influenced by the bottom topography, being oriented along isobaths and along the canyon axis. The deep slope current fluctuations are controlled by the local inertial motion (18.3 h) and also by low-frequency oscillations at periods of 6–10 days, related to the passage of atmospheric pressure cells. Particulate matter concentrations recorded during the experiment do not show a clear seasonal variability, except outside the canyon, where significant peaks of particulate matter concentrations were recorded only during the winter-fall deployment. In addition, the temporal evolution of suspended particulate matter concentration is not linked to changes in the cross-slope or along-slope current components and did not show a clear relationship with river avenues or wave storm events. This suggests that suspended particulate matter exported from the shelf is dispersed on the slope by advective processes, which attenuate the signal of the shelf-slope sediment transfer. Mean particulate matter concentrations differed among sampling sites, but the magnitude of the mean horizontal suspended particle flux reflects a quite similar value in the whole study area, ranging from 2.53 to 4.05 mg m−2 s−1. These horizontal suspended particle fluxes are 27 (canyon head) to 360 (open slope) times higher than the settling particle fluxes measured at the same sampling sites, indicating that the suspended particulate transport on the Barcelona continental slope dominates over the settling particle fluxes, even inside the Foix submarine canyon.