Sandy subaqueous dunes on the Murcia continental shelf (Western Mediterranean Sea)

40th CIESM Congress: The largest Forum on Mediterranean and Black Sea Research, 28 October - 1 November 2013, Marseille, France.-- 1 page, 1 figure
High-resolution multibeam data, sub-bottom seismic profiles and sediment samples have been acquired in the Murcia continental shelf (Western Mediterranean Sea) to characterize a field of subaqueous dunes observed in the middle to outer shelf. Bedforms are composed of sandy sediments and display asymmetric morphology, with crest to crest spacing ranging from 20 to 1400 m and an estimated height up to 1 m. Dune asymmetry and orientation reveal unidirectional along-shelf currents that are consistent with the regional circulation of the margin. This suggests that these bedforms could be formed by the action of the predominant geostrophic current flowing southwards along the shelf break and slope
This work is a contribution to the Spanish project FORMED (CGL2012- 33989). We thanks Secretariat General of the Sea and Tragsa for the 2001 Project Espace data set, and to the Spanish Oceanographic Institute for the ship time of the Copesands cruise. Ruth Durán thanks the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) for a JAE-Doc research contract