Debris Flows vs. Turbidity Currents: a Modeling Comparison of Their Dynamics and Deposits
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Published:January 01, 2000
Abstract
Debris flows tend to conserve their density, whereas turbidity currents constantly change theirs through erosion, deposition, and entrainment. Numerical models illustrate how this distinction leads to fundamental differences in the behaviors of debris flows and turbidity currents and the deposits they produce. The models predict that when begun on a slope that extends onto a basin floor, a debris flow will form a deposit that begins near its point of origin and gradually thickens basinward, ending abruptly at its head. By contrast, deposition from an ignitive turbidity current (i.e., one that causes significant erosion) will largely be restricted to...
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Contents
Fine-Grained Turbidite Systems

This Memoir covers one of the most important and active exploration reservoirs being pursued by geoscientists worldwide: fine-grained turbidite systems. 28 chapters show the results of an intense research effort in the 1990s that resulted from the discovery of large hydrocarbon accumulations in fine-grained turbidite systems in Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, West Africa, and the North Sea. Industry and academia have joined together in this publication and the result is a unique opportunity to study these turbidite systems from the outcrop to the modeling; through the interpretation with 2-D and 3-D seismic data; to case histories and analog studies from Arkansas and Oklahoma, South and West Africa, Gulf of Mexico, west Texas, and New Zealand.