Abstract
A continuous, meandering, leveed submarine channel cuts across the Mississippi Fan from the continental slope to the abyssal plain. The channel axis is underlain by a series of flat-lying, high-amplitude seismic reflectors which are interpreted as coarse sediments deposited while the channel was an active conduit for turbidity currents. A detailed watergun seismic reflection survey of one meander has revealed that the high-amplitude reflectors migrate laterally upsection, indicating that the channel axis position has shifted over time. The sense of this shift is such that the meander planform has evolved towards increasing sinuosity. At the same time, the meander as a whole has migrated downfan. Analogy with fluvial meander growth processes suggests that the observed increase in Mississippi Fan channel meander sinuosity could be a temporary oscillation about a steady-state equilibrium planform. Alternatively, it could be evidence of an overall increase in sinuosity throughout the channel system in response to a changing sediment load.
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