Late quaternary rates of abyssal mud deposition in the western Mediterranean Sea

Abstract

Mud layers of turbidite origin are readily distinguished from those of hemipelagic origin in X-radiographs of dominantly muddy cores collected in the southern part of the Balearic Abyssal Plain, western Mediterranean Sea. Radiocarbon dates based on the carbonate sand fraction sieved from hemipelagic muds indicate a hemipelagic rate of sedimentation of 10 cm 1000 yr and a frequency of turbidity current incursions of > 3 2000 yr during the past 15,000 years.