Abstract As part of the Norwegian Deep Water Programme, a regional geological and geophysical interpretation of the mid-Norwegian margin resulted in the establishment of a late Paleogene to Holocene stratigraphic framework for the margin, and identification and mapping of a range of possible geohazards, including slides. At the Vøring margin in the north, there has been the build-out of a huge prograding wedge of sediment in Plio-Pleistocene times. The sediments of the wedge are assigned to the Naust Formation, which has been subdivided into eight units (A-H), and includes only a few palaeoslides. To the south of the Vøring margin lies the Storegga Slide Complex and the North Sea Fan, and the whole of this southern region shows evidence of several major palaeoslides. The sediments are also referred to the Naust Formation, which here are subdivided into nine units (O-W) that have been partly correlated with equivalent Naust units to the north. The oldest Naust unit in the south, Naust Unit W, is largely made up of slide deposits that provide evidence for the earliest identified large-scale slope instability in the Storegga Slide Complex. This instability was penecontemporaneous with the initiation of the prograding wedge to the north, and both features are postulated to be the result of uplift of the Norwegian mainland. In the case of the Storegga Slide Complex, which lies close to the main area of uplift, oversteepening of the margin, together with seismicity associated with the Jan Mayen Fracture Zone and Møre-Trønderlag Fault Complex, may have initiated sliding that has since occurred intermittently up to Holocene times, over a time interval when there has additionally been much glacio-isostatic movement.

Abstract Along continental margins with rapid sedimentation, overpressure may build up in porous and compressible sediments. Large-scale release of such overpressure has major implications for fluid migration and slope stability. Here, we study if the widespread crater-mound-shaped structures in the subsurface along the mid-Norwegian continental margin are caused by overpressure that accumulated within high-compressibility oozes sealed by low-permeability glacial muds. We interpret 56 000 km 2 of 3D and 150 000 km 2 of 2D-cubed seismic data in the Norwegian Sea, combining horizon picking, well ties and seismic geomorphological analyses of the crater-mound landforms. Along the mid-Norwegian margin, the base of the glacially influenced sediments abruptly deepens to form 28 craters with typical depths of c. 100 m, areal extents of up to 5130 km 2 and volumes of up to 820 km 3 . Mounds are observed in the vicinity of the craters at several stratigraphic levels above the craters. We present a new model for the formation of the craters and mounds where the mounds consist of remobilized oozes evacuated from the craters. In our model, repeated and overpressure-driven sediment failure is interpreted to cause the crater-mound structures, as opposed to erosive megaslides. Seismic geomorphological analyses suggest that ooze remobilization occurred as an abrupt energetic and extrusive process. The results also suggest that rapidly deposited, low-permeability and low-porosity glacial sediments seal overpressure that originated from fluids being expelled from the underlying high-permeability and high-compressibility biosiliceous oozes.