Morphosedimentary Processes in Continental Margins and Oceanic Domain

Dear Colleagues,

The improvement of seafloor imaging techniques in recent decades, especially multibeam bathymetry and acoustic sub-bottom profiles, has allowed an unprecedented knowledge of how morphosedimentary processes act in continental margins and deep ocean domains. This has evidenced the important role played by the interaction between sedimentary, gravity-driven, oceanographic, and tectonic processes in shaping these marine environments. This growing knowledge has also led to an increasing awareness of the economic, societal, and geopolitical importance of the morphosedimentary processes well beyond the academic interest. Therefore, it has been realized that (i) the distribution of benthic communities can be partly controlled by the action of morphosedimentary processes, mainly the ones related to bottom currents circulation. Thus, a better understanding of this relationship is important in habitat mapping and on drawing conservation politics; (ii) geoharzards can be triggered by the interaction between along-  and down-slope morphosedimentary processes, such as the ones associated with contourite drifts, sediment waves, and mass movements.  Its occurrence can threaten and even destroy coastal communities and seafloor infrastructures; (iii) the distribution of morphosedimentary features related to bottom currents allows determining the imprint of deep water masses, giving valuable insights about their circulation and climate changes since the last glacial; (iv) the geopolitical importance of morphosedimentary processes has become relevant in the past few years, as they have been used to support the determination of the outer limit of the legal continental shelf of coastal States under Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

This Special Issue aims to provide an up-to-date and multiple-perspective approach of morphosedimentary processes acting in continental margins and oceanic domains, given particular relevance to their interplay with other geomorphic processes, such as gravity, tectonics, oceanographic circulation, and its importance to geohazards and climate change studies.

Dr. Cristina Roque
Guest Editor

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• continental margins
• deep-water settings
• bottom currents circulation
• contourite drifts
• mass movement processes
• turbidity currents
• tectonic control