Geological factors controlling sediment transport from platform to deep basin: a review

The aim of this paper is to review the geological factors which control the stratigraphic architecture of deep-sea fan deposits in passive margin settings. The recent discoveries of gaint hydrocarbon fields in the deep offshore of the Atlantic margins and of the Gulf of Mexico, and the related improvement of drilling and production technologies in very deep waters, have recently resulted in an intense activity in exploration of passive margins around the world. A vast amount of new data, and especially 3D seismic data, has been acquired, and its interpretation completely changes our views about the stratigraphic architecture of deep-sea fans. These new data sets also evidence our poor understanding of the sedimentary processes at the origin of the gravity hows, and highlight the diversity of the geological parameters controlling the evolution of these processes through time at the basin-scale. (C) 2001 published by Elsevier Science Ltd.