USGS ScienceSearch

Geology topics

J. S. Schlee

Publications and source records attributed to J. S. Schlee.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

Submarine processes of the middle Atlantic continental rise based on GLORIA imagery

Approximately 6100 km of 3.5-kHz echo-sounding profiles was correlated with a GLORIA side-scan sonar image of the mid-Atlantic United States (34??N, 70??W) lower slope-upper continental rise. The image allows us to map the major erosional and depositional features and to identify major processes that have shaped the area. Interpretation of GLORIA imagery and echo-sounding profiles indicates that mass movement is the predominant process affecting sediment on the United States east coast mid-Atlantic slope and upper rise and that isobath-parallel sediment movement by geostrophic currents is restricted mainly to the lower continental rise. The mass-movement processes evident on the rise probably were most active during the Pleistocene, when sea level was lower and sediment input more active. -from Authors

Geological Society of America Bulletin

The development of the continental margin of eastern North America-conjugate continental margin to West Africa

The continental margin of eastern North America was initiated when West Africa and North America were rifted apart in Triassic-Early Jurassic time. Cooling of the crust and its thinning by rifting and extension caused subsidence. Variation in amounts of subsidence led to formation of five basins. These are listed from south to north. (1) The Blake Plateau Basin, the southernmost, is the widest basin and the one in which the rift-stage basement took longest to form. Carbonate platform deposition was active and persisted until the end of Early Cretaceous. In Late Cretaceous, deposition slowed while subsidence persisted, so a deep water platform was formed. Since the Paleocene the region has undergone erosion. (2) The Carolina Trough is narrow and has relatively thin basement, on the basis of gravity modeling. The two basins with thin basement, the Carolina Trough and Scotian Basin, also show many salt diapirs indicating considerable deposition of salt during their early evolution. In the Carolina Trough, subsidence of a large block of strata above the flowing salt has resulted in a major, active normal fault on the landward side of the basin. (3) The Baltimore Canyon Trough has an extremely thick sedimentary section; synrift and postrift sediments exceed 18 km in thickness. A Jurassic reef is well developed on the basin's seaward side, but post-Jurassic deposition was mainly non-carbonate. In general the conversion from carbonate to terrigenous deposition, characteristics of North American Basins, occurred progressively earlier toward the north. (4) The Georges Bank Basin has a complicated deep structure of sub-basins filled with thick synrift deposits. This may have resulted from some shearing that occurred at this offset of the continental margin. Postrift sediments apparently are thin compared to other basins—only about 8 km. (5) The Scotian Basin, off Canada, contains Jurassic carbonate rocks, sandstone, shale and coal covered by deltaic deposits and Upper Cretaceous deeper water chalk and shale.

Journal of African Earth Sciences