[EN] The Antarctic Peninsula Pacific Margin of Palmer Archipelago has been studied by means of EM12 multibeam high resolution bathymetry. In each fisiographic province, shelf, slope and continental rise, we have identified different morphosedimentary features. In the outer continental shelf there are two main progradational lobes over which an irregular sedimentary front identified as a till-delta is observed. The continental slope is very steep, reaching up to 22°, and is carved by short gullies that do not seems to erode the shelf break and the upper continental rise. In this latter physiographic province there are five sedimentary mounds of variable size and shape with a NW oriented crests. Between them develop four main channels responsible of the mound building. These channels are tributed by several feeding heads at the upper continental rise and by trough corridors initiated at the crest of the mounds. Also semicircular scars are identified in the continental rise, but mainly in the mound crests. All these morphosedimentary features of predominantly NW direction, probably are inherited of the past glacial periods. Nowadays, because the sedimentary conditions have changed, the continental rise is readjusting to a new situation by means of mound erosion through new erosive channels and sedimentary instability processes that follow a main NNE direction

[ES] El margen continental pacífico de la Península Antàrtica es el resultado de la subducción de la placa tectónica de Fénix bajo la Antàrtica (Larter et al., 1997). Dicha subducción se paró durante el Mioceno y a partir de entonces el margen, que presenta características glaciares, ha ido progradando fundamentalmente durante los períodos en que el hielo avanzó hasta el borde de plataforma. En el glacis continental se han desarrollado hasta 12 montículos sedimentarios (Rebesco et al., 2000) que tradicionalmente han sido interpretados como producto de los procesos de desbordamiento de los canales y del transporte por corrientes de fondo, que junto con la fuerza de Coriolis han favorecido un desarrollo asimétrico de dichos montículos (Rebesco et al., 1997). El objetivo principal de este trabajo es el estudio detallado mediante una batimetría de multihaz de los elementos morfológicos más relevantes que caracterizan a las provincias fisiográficas del margen continental y la interpretación de su significado sedimentario. [...]

V Congreso Geológico de España, 10-14 julio 2000, Alicante.-- 4 pages, 1 figure

Peer reviewed