文摘
The interpretation of approximately 100 km of EM12 multibeam bathymetry and backscatter data together with high resolution TOPAS profiles obtained during a transit over the Orinoco deep-sea fan, near the Barbados accretionary prism, shows that the braided drainage pattern seen on GLORIA images by Belderson et al. (1984) corresponds to wide (10 km), low relief (<5 m) channels, incised by numerous small (500 m wide, 1 m relief) erosional notches. However, the new data indicate that what was originally described as a braided system, actually is a complex depositional system composed of sinuous channels, braided channels and depositional lobes, which co-exist in a short distance, and are easily transformed in each other in response to changes in the flux power.