Recent sedimentary events in the western Gulf of Lions (Western Mediterranean)

Analysis of very high-resolution data (3.5 kHz profiles and EM12D acoustic imagery) collected during the CALMAR (Catalono-Languedocian Margin cruise) (1997) highlighted the occurrence of two very recent, but previously unknown erosional sedimentary events on the continental rise, between the Rhone Fan and the Pyreneo-Languedocian Ridge. These events, preserved as unconformable, very thin lobes observable on acoustic imagery but not on 3.5 kHz echo-soundings, relate to erosional processes linked to near-bottom currents that seem to characterize the Holocene hydrodynamical conditions in the deep Gulf of Lions. They follow a Pleistocene regime when gravity sedimentation dominated on the Gulf of Lions margin either through aggradational turbidite deposition (Rhone Fan and Pyreneo-Languedocian Ridge), or through remobilization of sediments by regional mass-movements processes. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.