Spatiotemporal distribution of sediment waves in the northern Gulf of Mexico Basin, USA

Abstract

The northern Gulf of Mexico basin, known for its hydrocarbon potential and a myriad of geologic structures and processes, has been underexplored to understand deepwater sediment waves. The recent release of a vast amount of both 2D and 3D seismic data by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) calls for a basin-wide identification of the sediment waves in the Gulf of Mexico.Integrating seismic, well-log, and high-resolution bathymetric data, this study identified sediment-wave fields on the seafloor as well as in the stratigraphic record. These sediment waves have an average wavelength of 798 m and an average wave height of 18 m. On the present-day seafloor, sediment waves are only located on the northwestern continental slope and eastward of the Bryant Fan area (south of Green Knoll). However, in the stratigraphic record, these bedform structures were found to be prevalent across the northwestern continental slope, northeastern continental slope, and continental rise. All of these sediment waves migrate upslope with crests that are perpendicular to the direction of basin-slope (i.e., parallel to the bathymetric contours). Thus, they are interpreted as cyclic-steps bedforms produced by supercritical sediment gravity flow processes. Investigations of these sediment waves have implications for petroleum geology, geohazard studies, oceanography, hydrodynamics, paleoclimate, and coastal engineering.