Linking Slope Sedimentation, Gradient, Morphology, and Active Faulting: An Integrated Example from the Palos Verdes Slope, Southern California Borderland

Abstract:

Seafloor gradient variations associated with restraining and releasing bends along the active (1.6–1.9 mm/yr) right-lateral Palos Verdes Fault appear to control Holocene sediment thickness, depositional environment, and morphodynamic processes along a section of the continental slope offshore Los Angeles, California. Autonomous underwater mapping vehicle (AUV), remotely operated vehicle (ROV), and shipboard methods were used to acquire a dense grid of high-resolution chirp profiles (150 m line spacing; 11 cm vertical resolution), multibeam bathymetry (2 m grid), and targeted sediment core samples (<2 m length). Detailed interpretation of Holocene deposits in the chirp profiles combined with radiocarbon dating and laser particle-size analyses allow correlation of Holocene sediment thickness and seafloor gradient with sediment gravity flow deposits. Holocene down-slope flows appear to have been generated by mass wasting processes, primarily on the upper slope (~100–200 m water depth) where shipboard multibeam bathymetry reveals submarine landslide headwall scarps in a region that has been isolated from terrigenous sediment sources throughout the Holocene. Submarine landslides appear to have transformed into sandy and organic-rich turbidity currents that created up-slope migrating sediment waves, a low relief (<5 m) fault-bounded channel, and a series of depocenters. A down-slope gradient profile and a Holocene isopach down-slope profile show that the primary depocenter occurs within a small pull-apart basin associated with a decrease in seafloor gradient of ~1.5°. Holocene sediment-flow deposits vary in number, thickness, and character with subtle changes in seabed gradient (<0.5°) and depositional environment. These results help quantify morphodynamic sensitivity to seafloor gradients and have implications for down-slope flow dynamics, deep-water depositional architecture, Holocene sediment, nutrient, and contaminant transport, and turbidite paleoseismology along other margins.