Marine geology of the quaternary bass canyon system, southeast Australia: a cool-water carbonate system

Abstract

The modern Bass Canyon is one of the world's largest submarine canyon systems that is entirely located within a cool-water carbonate environment. Five large shelf-breaching and three slope-confined tributary canyons coalesce on the lower slope and enter the massive deep-water Bass Canyon at 3000 m depth. Normal slope sediments consist predominantly of sandy calcilutite and muddy calcarenite interpreted as mud flow and mud-lubricated sandy debris flow deposits respectively, and hemipelagic foraminiferal calcilutite. Canyon head sediments consist of intraclast-rich calcarenite and calcirudite, probably deposited by mass-wasting events, and fine calcarenite, deposited by cohesionless sandy debr..