Pockforms: an evaluation of pockmark-like seabed features on the Landes Plateau, Bay of Biscay

Abstract

Pockmark-like seabed features located on the Landes Plateau, Bay of Biscay, are depressions up to 1 km across and 50 m deep according to multibeam echo sounder data. Seismic (airgun and TOPAS) profiles show that each feature comprises a stack of identical features which extend down to 300 ms (twt). Three types of depressions, elongate, irregular and circular, appear as non-truncating V-shaped features in the Plio-Quaternary sediments. These features are located above the Parentis Basin where deep faults, basement ridges and diapiric bodies extend upwards across the sedimentary cover, providing ideal migration pathways for any buoyant fluids. Initial inspection suggests that these are classic pockmarks; however, the absence of reflection truncation and the absence of indications of shallow gas beneath the features indicate that they were not formed by the removal of sediment. These are “pockforms” but not “pockmarks”. This paper presents an explanation for the formation of these features, involving collapse and subsidence, sedimentary erosion, and only in some cases the erosion of seabed sediments by probable escaping fluids. These origins are mainly conducted through tectonic fluid dynamics which acted in the area up to the Late Miocene. It might be expected that these features would have been infilled by subsequent sedimentation, but their shape has been preserved because sedimentation in the area mainly comprised muds deposited from low-energy transportation (diluted gravity flows) and settling from hemipelagic suspension.