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The Geology of Continental Margins pp 493–504Cite as

Sedimentary Sequences in the North Pacific Trenches

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Abstract

The sedimentary rock sequences of north Pacific trenches are the generally undeformed deposits that lie immediately seaward of continental and insular slopes and that typically overlie a landward-dipping (1–5°) oceanic acoustic basement. The sediment-filled (1–2 km), and therefore bathymetrically unexpressed, Washington-Oregon Trench lies adjacent to the North American margin between northern California and Vancouver Island, British Columbia. This trench’s landward-dipping basement is conformably overlain by a hemiterrigenous sequence composed chiefly of distal turbidites, probably the downwarped terrigenous and less-abundant pelagic deposits of an abyssal plain, formed in late Miocene through early Pleistocene time. It is overlain by a terrigenous sequence of landward-thickening and flat-lying turbidites. Formed during the past 1.0 my, the turbidite wedge is a true axial trench deposit.

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Authors
  1. David W. Scholl
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Mobil Oil Corporation, 221 Nassau Street, 08540, Princeton, New Jersey, USA

    Creighton A. Burk (Chief Geologist) (Chief Geologist)

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, 03755, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA

    Charles L. Drake (Professor of Earth Sciences) (Professor of Earth Sciences)

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Scholl, D.W. (1974). Sedimentary Sequences in the North Pacific Trenches. In: Burk, C.A., Drake, C.L. (eds) The Geology of Continental Margins. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01141-6_35

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01141-6_35

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

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