Bedform development in confined and unconfined settings of the Carchuna Canyon (Alboran Sea, western Mediterranean Sea): An example of cyclic steps in shelf-incised canyons
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Newly acquired high-resolution multibeam bathymetry in combination with sub-bottom acoustic profiles, surficial sediment samples, and three-dimensional flow simulations made possible the characterization of bedforms along the axial channel and depositional lobe of the shelf-incised Carchuna Canyon (Alboran Sea, western Mediterranean Sea). This study aims to describe the erosional and depositional bedforms in confined and unconfined settings of the Carchuna Canyon in order to determine the genetic constraints on sedimentary processes leading to bedform development along the canyon in recent times. The straight Carchuna Canyon, deeply incised in the shelf up to 200 m off the coastline, hosts: (1) crescentic-shaped bedforms (CSBs) that exhibit distinctive crest concavities, asymmetries, and lengths along the axial channel; (2) continuous lateral levees and; (3) a channel bend with three depressed stretches of the levee crest that are less than 20 m high. A set of concentric sediment waves and two scour trails were identified proximal to the channel bend on the open slope east of the Carchuna Canyon. Two distinct acoustic groups consisting of four acoustic units with distinct acoustic patterns were defined along the sediment wave field. The sediment transport simulation shows the highest flow velocities along the Carchuna Canyon thalweg, while along the overbank deposition the highest velocity values occur along the top of the bedform crests, with the higher Froude values being found over the bedform lee sides. The occurrence of CSBs along the canyon axial channel suggests the imprint of confined sediment-laden gravity flows descending from the canyon head and exhibiting a flow variability along the canyon induced by local variations of slope gradient and/or sediment concentration. A spatial relationship is identified between the development of sediment waves over the overbank deposit and lowered levee crest heights at the channel bend. In contrast, more energetic downstream turbiditic flows exceed the levee crest at the channel bend, focusing the overflow and promoting erosion of the overbank deposit, thereby generating the scour trains. Based on the recent history of overbank deposition, two alternating scenarios of flow behavior can be interpreted. In a high-density turbidity current setting, erosion would prevail along the axial channel. Widespread spillover flows of coarse-grained sediments would occur in both levees, forming heterogeneous sedimentary patterns that change downslope within the depositional lobe due to lesser turbulence of spillover turbidity currents and gentler slope gradients. In contrast, in a low-density turbidity current setting, turbidity currents flowing along the Carchuna Canyon would form depositional bedforms in the axial channel, while spillover processes would be localized at the channel bend, forming either depositional or erosional bedforms over the depositional lobe according to the frequency, magnitude and focusing of turbiditic flows. • Carchuna Canyon contains confined and unconfined cyclic steps. • Crescent-shaped bedforms are generated by confined sediment-laden gravity flows. • Depressed stretches of the levee crest are associated to sediment wave development. • Energetic and occasional turbidity flows erode overbank deposits to form scours. • Low- and high-density turbidity flows formed the depositional lobe in the recent past.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".