Influence of deposit architecture on intrastratal deformation, slope deposits of the Tres Pasos Formation, Chile

Abstract

Slope sediments on passive and active margins deform and fail across a broad range of scales ranging from loading and sediment remobilization near the sediment–water interface to submarine landslides and mass movements that incorporate significant volumes of slope deposits. Deformational styles are characterized by updip extension and downdip compressional features that occur above a detachment surface. Conditions for failure and deformation include the presence of weak layer(s) that serve as a detachment surface, competency contrasts that allow for detachment and downslope movement, deformation above a detachment surface, and a triggering mechanism(s) that initiates failure. Slope failure processes and products are well documented at scales resolvable by seismic-reflection surveys and in instances of extensive downslope failure, but the processes and products associated with intermediate-scale slope deformation are poorly understood.Intrastratal deformation is defined as stratigraphically isolated zones of deformation bounded above and below by concordant and undeformed strata. In this study, outcrop examples of intrastratal deformation from the Upper Cretaceous Tres Pasos Formation are used to elucidate the influence of depositional architecture on slope deformation. The facies distribution associated with compensational stacking of lobe deposits is shown to have a first-order control on the location and style of deformation. Detachment planes that form in mudstone deposits associated with lobe fringe and interlobe deposits are spatially limited and deformation is restricted to interbedded sandstone and mudstone associated with off-axial lobe positions. Downslope translation was arrested by stratigraphic buttresses associated with more sandstone-prone axial deposits. Emplacement of a regionally extensive mass transport deposit is interpreted as the triggering mechanism for contemporaneous intrastratal deformation of >60m of underlying stratigraphy. A vertical increase in ductile deformation through the deformation interval indicates the role of burial depth and compaction. Distinguishing synburial intrastratal deformation (10s of m below seafloor) from tectonic or at-seafloor deformation has important implications for interpretations of burial history, slope stability, and potential triggering mechanisms.