Submarine-channel meandering reset by landslide filling, Taranaki Basin, New Zealand

Abstract

Landslides are among the largest mass movements on Earth. As such, the deposits of landslides, also known as mass-transport deposits, are significant architectural elements of continental margins, especially those receiving sediment from large deltas. Landslide dams have been shown to alter the courses of rivers and submarine channels. However, there are fewer examples of landslides completely filling submarine channels and examples of the subsequent stratigraphic evolution. A three-dimensional seismic-reflection dataset (<90 Hz) from the deep-water (>1500 m) Taranaki Basin, offshore the North Island of New Zealand, was used to explore the response of a sequence of channel deposits to landslide filling. The basal channel system initially meandered like a river, with successive channel positions in close proximity, as it aggraded >250 ms two-way travel time. This systematic, organised evolution is governed by the memory of early channel evolution, which sets the sea floor geomorphology that guides channel-forming turbidity currents. Later, a channel approximately twice as wide as underlying channels cut off a number of channel bends, probably as a result of an increase in the discharge of channel-forming turbidity currents. This last channel was filled with submarine landslides, which transported and deposited sediment as debris flows based on the presence of blocks within a matrix comprising chaotic, lower amplitude seismic facies. These debris-flow deposits smoothed over the sea floor, effectively wiping the memory of channel evolution. As a result, the subsequent channel pattern bears no resemblance to the basal system. Submarine-channel resetting by landslide filling is common in settings with frequent catastrophic basin-margin collapses, like offshore New Zealand.