Pleistocene tunnel valleys in the North Sea Basin

Abstract

Tunnel valleys were first described over a century ago from the glaciated lowlands of northern Europe (Jentzsch 1884). Landforms described as tunnel valleys constitute open, partially or fully buried palaeo-landforms. Over the past 40 years the proliferation of geophysical surveys has allowed almost complete mapping of tunnel valleys across the North Sea Basin (Huuse & Lykke-Andersen 2000; Van der Vegt et al. 2012). In the central and southern North Sea, 3D seismic surveys completely image tunnel valley systems at a resolution of tens of metres (Fig. 1) (Praeg 1996; Stewart et al. 2013; Moreau & Huuse 2014). Fig. 1. Buried middle/late Pleistocene tunnel valleys in the eastern North Sea Basin. ( a ) Seven generations of tunnel valleys interpreted using 3D seismic data along the Norwegian–Danish border. Also visualized are the near-base Pleistocene surface and locations of salt domes (Kristensen et al. 2007). ( b ) Location of study area (red box; map from GEBCO_08). ( c ) Vertical and ( d ) horizontal seismic expression of buried tunnel valley V01 (x–x′). ( e ) Arbitrary seismic line extracted along the long axis of tunnel valley V06 showing highly …