Development of slope valleys in the glacimarine environment of a complex subduction zone, Northern Gulf of Alaska

Abstract

Morphological, seismic-reflection, and sedimentological evidence indicates that glacial ice tongues cut large sea valleys into the Gulf of Alaska continental shelf during the Pleistocene. During the Holocene, glacially-derived sediments from the Copper River and other meltwater streams have been prograding seaward across the shelf, covering the glacial and glacimarine upper Yakataga diamicts that blanketed the shelf and accumulated on the upper slope seaward of the sea valleys during the Pleistocene. GLORIA imagery near Middleton Island provides a new perspective on the glacimarine depositional environment on the continental slope in a collision zone between the Pacific and North American plates. Southwest of Middleton Island, along the subduction margin, sinuous valleys funnel sediment around shelf-edge-parallel, subduction-created, anticlinal ridges that have deflected and locally trapped glacimarine sediment. The slope south and southeast of Middleton Island where oblique convergence occurs, is incised by dendritic, erosional gulley systems, contains no compressional ridges, and thus, the apparently active sediment pathways to the trench are unrestricted. However, below the sea valley mouths, apparently both glacial and glacimarine sediments blanket the upper slope, covering any dendritic gulley systems that may have formed during or since the Pleistocene low stands of sea level.