Submarine Landslides -- East Coast Continental Slope and Upper Rise

Potential hydrocarbon reservoirs are located beneath the continental slope of the East Coast of North America. The slope marks the site of major sediment slides. The size, configuration, origin and history of such a submarine landslide located off Baltimore Canyon was examined through studies using detailed, precision navigated hydrographic and subbottom high-resolution seismic reflection profiling. The shipboard data were visually confirmed through a series of submersible traverses aboard the DSV ALVIN. The survey delineated a complex pattern of incised valleys and ridges some of which encroach onto the continental shelf. A 50 m thick stratified sediment sheet has moved through faulting and sliding from the valley slopes and deposited in the valley axes as unlayered acoustically incoherent deposits merging into an extensive sediment fan beyond the 2900 m isobath.