Search

Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 2003. With that ratification is an obligation to submit data and information to the U.N. pertaining to the limits of the country's extended continental shelf (ECS); the portion of the juridical continental shelf that extends beyond 200 nautical miles. A team of Canadian scientists, managers, and legal experts that included representation from three Federal Departments (Natural Resources Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and Global Affairs Canada) with additional support from other departments, spent 13 years compiling and acquiring data to provide the scientific evidence to support delineation of Canada's seaward most maritime limit. The submission has the potential to provide Canada with 2.4 million km2 of additional submarine landmass in the Atlantic and the Arctic oceans over which Canada exercises sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting its natural resources. Specific information such as the tectonic framework of the continental margin, the geomorphology of the margin and in particular the continental slope, the geologic nature of adjoined ridges, rises, and plateaux, and sediment thickness within adjacent basins are examples of fundamental pieces of geoscientific information needed to substantiate Canada's outermost maritime limits. This paper highlights a number of segments of Canada's continental margins to showcase this scientific evidence and how it is applied in the UNCLOS context. In doing so, the paper demonstrates the geologic complexity of Canada's margins as illustrated in scientific publications that have resulted from these new data collections, while at the same time presenting new scientific evidence and interpretations. This collection of data and information provides a wealth of new knowledge in Canada's offshore regions. The massive data compilation in the Atlantic led to conception of continental margins, in a source-to-sink scenario, as having an equilibrium base level or graded form, comparable to river systems. Departures from this shape relate to the interplay of sedimentary processes and in particular to those processes that do not fit the source-to-sink paradigm. For example, a significant part of the Atlantic margin is shown to be heavily influenced by along-slope geostrophic currents that generated massive contourite drift deposits. These deposits reflect lateral transport of sediment that had a significant impact on the morphology of the margin. The role of mass transport processes in shaping continental margins is also highlighted, and in particular the collapses of entire segments of the margin were observed. The prominent role mass failure processes play in delivering sediment to the adjacent abyssal plain is also critical in the ECS context. These observations challenge the entrenched notion of a continental margin comprising a shelf, slope, and rise and in particular the concept of the "continental rise". Prior to 2006, regions of the Arctic Ocean seaward of the Canadian landmass had fewer than 5000 km of seismic reflection data. The massive efforts of Arctic coastal States to map their margins for ECS purposes have led to a leap in technological advances to acquire data in ice-covered seas and have led to a wealth of new geoscientific knowledge. Perhaps foremost amongst this knowledge is demonstration that Canada Basin is indeed a fully developed ocean basin, albeit significantly infilled with sediment. Based on this knowledge and identification of related structures, new realistic tectonic scenarios for opening of the Amerasia Basin are proposed that include a significant component of transform or strike-slip motions. With seismic velocity and rock sample information, the continental nature of Alpha and Mendeleev ridges has been substantiated. Even bathymetric data were lacking in the Arctic and new editions of seafloor maps now support grids of 500 m spacing; although some regions remain sparse. Once thought to be relatively stagnant, sedimentary processes such as found in many ocean basins were discovered in the Arctic Ocean. Evidence of geostrophic currents, sediment mass failures, and deep-sea turbidity current channels were found to be ubiquitous, even in the deepest parts of the Arctic's basins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada has the longest coastline and largest continental margin of any nation in the World. As a result, it is more likely than other nations to experience marine geohazards such as submarine landslides and consequent tsunamis. Coastal landslides represent a specific threat because of their possible proximity to societal infrastructure and high tsunami potential; they occur without warning and with little time lag between failure and tsunami impact. Continental margin landslides are common in the geologic record but rare on human timescales. Some ancient submarine landslides are massive but more recent events indicate that even relatively small slides on continental margins can generate devastating tsunamis. Tsunami impact can occur hundreds of km away from the source event, and with less than 2 hours warning. Identification of high-potential submarine landslide regions, combined with an understanding of landslide and tsunami processes and sophisticated tsunami propagation models, are required to identify areas at high risk of impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eastern Canadian continental margin is a typical glaciated passive margin where historic earthquakes have triggered submarine landslides. This study compares seismological estimates of earthquake recurrence with the geological record over the past 85 k.y. offshore of Newfoundland to assess the reliability of the geologic record. Heinrich layers in cores provide chronology at ~3-5 k.y. resolution in high-resolution seismic-reflection profiles across headscarps and mass-transport deposits. Landslide-generated turbidites on the basin floor have distinctive petrology, sedimentology, and distribution, with ~1 k.y. chronologic resolution. Large slope failures occurred synchronously over margin lengths of 50-300 km. Since 85 ka, four failures have affected a >150-km-long sector of the slope and 18 failures were large enough to be recognized in seismic-reflection profiles and/or cores. The widespread failures were earthquake triggered; other mechanisms for triggering laterally extensive synchronous failure do not apply. A frequency-magnitude plot of length of failed slope was calibrated by the published relationship that an order-of-magnitude increase in failed slope length corresponds to two orders of magnitude of earthquake energy, together with the published estimate of Mw = 8.0 for the largest earthquake on the Canadian eastern continental margin. Mean recurrence interval of M = 7 earthquakes at any point on the margin is estimated at 25-30 k.y. from both seismological models and the sediment failure record. On such a margin with modest sedimentation rates (~0.3 m/k.y.) and low seismicity, sediment failures provide a robust estimator of past seismicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Five sites located on a bathymetric transect of the distal Demerara Rise were studied by ODP Leg 207. Albian sediments of essentially terrigenous nature (clay, siltstone, sandstone) are the oldest drilled stratigraphic levels and form apparently the top of the synrift sequence. They are overlain by Cenomanian to Santonian finely laminated black shales, rich in organic matter of marine origin, which accumulated on a thermally subsiding ramp. Early Campanian hiatuses are thought to be the result of final disjunction of Demerara Rise (South America) from Africa and the onset of deep water communication between the two Atlantic basins (south and central). The overlying Uppermost Cretaceous–Oligocene chalk includes rich and diversified calcareous plankton assemblages, as well as two radiolarian-rich intervals (Late Campanian and Middle Eocene). A complex erosional surface developed during the Late Oligocene–Early Miocene. Sedimentation was impeded since then on the intermediate and deep sites of Demerara Rise, possibly due to the action of deep submarine currents. To cite this article: T. Danelian et al., C. R. Geoscience 337 (2005). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]