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ABSTRACT The sea floor of intraslope minibasins on passive continental margins plays a significant role in controlling turbidity current pathways and the resulting sediment distribution. To address this, laboratory analogue modelling of intraslope minibasin formation is combined with numerical flow simulations of multi-event turbidity currents. This approach permits an improved understanding of evolving flow-bathymetry-deposit interactions and the resulting internal stacking patterns of the infills of such minibasins. The bathymetry includes a shelf to slope channel followed by an upper minibasin, which are separated by a confining ridge from two lower minibasins that compares well with analogous bathymetries reported from natural settings. From a wider range of numerical flow experiments, a series of 100 consecutive flows is reported in detail. The turbidity currents are released into the channel and upon reaching the upper minibasin follow a series of stages from short initial ponding, 'filling and spilling' and an extended transition to long retrogradational ponding. Upon reaching the upper minibasin floor, the currents undergo a hydraulic jump and therefore much sediment is deposited in the central part of the minibasin and the counterslope. This modifies the bathymetry such that in the fill and spill stage, flow stripping and grain-size partitioning cause some finer sediment to be transported across the confining ridge into the lower minibasins. Throughout the basin infill process, the sequences retrograde upstream, accompanied by lateral switching into locally formed depressions in the upper minibasin. After the fill and spill stage, significant deposition occurs in the channel where retrograding cyclic steps with wavelengths of 1 to 2 km develop as a function of pulsating flow criticality. These results are at variance with conventional schemes that emphasize sequential downstream minibasin filling through ponding dominated by vertical aggradation. Comparison of these results with published field and experimental examples provides support for the main conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike for subaerial settings, the impact of subaqueous relay ramps on sediment dispersal is still poorly understood. A combination of analogue laboratory experiments in a sandbox with numerical flow calculations is used to simulate relay ramp topographies on rifting continental margins and to analyse the resulting turbidity current pathways and their deposits. Various scenarios are investigated, including inflow perpendicular and oblique to the relay ramp axis as well as flow constrained by an incised channel on the ramp and by a landward-directed tilt of the ramp. Without channelling, most sedimentation takes place on the basin floor because the bulk of the flow follows the steepest gradient down the fault and into the rift basin. With a channel along the relay ramp, significant flow occurs initially down the ramp axis, but channel spillover and basinward ramp tilting combine to redirect much of the sediment down the fault slope into the basin. When the relay ramp has a landward-oriented tilt, most of the current flows down the ramp and deposits its sediment load there and at the foot of the ramp. However, also here a considerable amount of the flow is shed over the hanging wall fault and into the basin, forming a secondary depocentre, while ponding redistributes thin deposits over a wider area of the basin. The quantitative dependence of these results on the specific ramp geometries remains to be investigated further but may bear great importance for refined sedimentary models in subaqueous rifted settings as well as for hydrocarbon exploration therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]