A POLYNOMIAL MODEL FOR LATERAL THICKNESS DECAY OF SUBMARINE CHANNEL-LEVEES

Active and relic channels with extensive levees are common on the seafloor adjacent to the continental margin. Exponential, power-law, and logarithmic functions have been proposed by others to describe the lateral thickness decay of submarine levees. In the present study, experiments have been conducted to study submarine levee growth by flow stripping at a channel bend. Various functions have been fitted to the data. The results show that a third-order polynomial function best describes the levee thickness in the cross-stream direction near a submarine channel bend. Generalized model coefficients are derived as functions of deposit thickness adjacent to the channel bank. The model is applied to experimental data obtained by others as well as levee shapes derived from seismic data. In both cases, satisfactory agreements are found. The proposed model can be a useful tool for stratigraphic modeling of submarine channel levee systems and fill gaps in field data.