Abstract
The Munson-Nygren-Retriever (MNR) landslide complex is a series of distinct submarine landslides located between Nygren and Powell canyons on the Georges Bank lower slope. These landslides were first imaged in 1978 using widely-spaced seismic reflection profiles and were further investigated using continuous coverage GLORIA sidescan imagery collected over the landslide complex in 1987. Recent acquisition of high-resolution multibeam bathymetry across these landslides has provided an unprecedented view of their complex morphology and allows for a more detailed investigation of their evacuation and deposit morphologies and sizes, modes of failure, and relationship to the adjacent sections of the margin, including the identification of an additional landslide within the MNR complex, referred to here as the Pickett slide. The evacuation zone of these landslides covers an area of approximately 1,780 km2. The headwalls of these landslides are at a depth of approximately 1,800 m, with evacuation extending for approximately 60 km downslope to the top of the continental rise. High-relief debris deposits, in the form of blocks and ridges, are present down the length of the majority of the evacuation zones and within the deposition area at the base of the slope. On the continental rise, the deposits from each of the most recent failures of the MNR complex landslides merge with debris from earlier continental slope failures, canyon and along-slope derived deposits, and prominent upper-rise failures.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission project N6480 for funding the 2009 multibeam data collection and analysis. The authors would like to express their appreciation to the officers and crew of the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown. David Mosher, Kathy Scanlon, and Emily Himmelstoss provided excellent reviews which improved many aspects of the manuscript. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
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Chaytor, J.D., Twichell, D.C., ten Brink, U.S. (2012). A Reevaluation of the Munson-Nygren-Retriever Submarine Landslide Complex, Georges Bank Lower Slope, Western North Atlantic. In: Yamada, Y., et al. Submarine Mass Movements and Their Consequences. Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research, vol 31. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2162-3_12
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