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Conspicuous deepwater submarine mounds in the northeastern Orphan Basin and on the Orphan Knoll, offshore Newfoundland

Memorial University, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada

Corresponding author: michaele@mun.ca

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Over 20 000 km of modern 2D data were recently collected (2000–2003) in the Orphan Basin, offshore Newfoundland, by Geophysical Survey Incorporated (GSI) and donated to the Memorial University for research. In spite of being specifically acquired for hydrocarbon exploration with a conventional air-gun array, the data have excellent resolution in the shallow part where reef-like mounds are visible at the water bottom, in 1800–2300 m below sea level. Two seismic lines are used in this paper to illustrate the location, configuration and seismic character of the identified geomounds (Figures 1 and 3 for locations; figures 2, 4–8 for display).

View larger version (96K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 1. Orphan Knoll submarine mound field. (Bathymetry map is based on 2004 ODP reports; tectonic framework from Enachescu et al., 2004). The mound field extension is shown by yellow circle; active petroleum exploration area is the black dotted rectangle. The two seismic lines discussed in the paper are in Figures 2 and 6. CGFZ=Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone and CBFZ=Cumberland Belt Fault Zone bound the Orphan Basin to the north and south, respectively. DSDP Site 111 (1973) and 2003 ODP Sites 1276 and 1277 also are shown.

View larger version (34K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 3. Orphan Knoll bathymetry, DSDP Site 111, location of submarine mounds (red circles) and portion of seismic lines OR0-102 and OR0-107 used to illustrate this paper. Locations of the following figures illustrating the paper are indexed as F4 (blue line), F5 (red line and zoom on Einarsson Seamound), F7 (blue line), and F8 (red line and zoom on Nader Seamound).

View larger version (81K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 2. Line OR0-102 showing presence of submarine mound, named here Einarsson, on the southwestern flank of Orphan Knoll in more than 2200 m of water. Orphan Knoll is covered by Tertiary, Cretaceous, Jurassic and probably Triassic sediments above an extended continental basement. Location of line is given in Figure 1. Box . . . [Full Text of this Article]