Resumen de Contourites of the Eastern Corsica margin: a record of the palaeocirculation of Levantine Intermediate Waters during the last 200,000 yrs
Nicolas Touyet, Emmanuelle Ducassou, Thierry Mulder, Gwenaël Jouet, S. Toucanne, K. Charlier
The continental slope of the eastern margin of Corsica deepens eastwards towards the Corsican Trough, which is bordered by the Pianosa Ridge on its eastern flank. The presence of both ridge and sills confine the eastern Corsica basin, also named Channel of Corsica (less than 1,000 m water depth). A vein of the Levantine Intermediate Water (LIW), the saltiest and warmest Mediterranean water, flows out northward through the Channel of Corsica. During the last 200,000 yrs, sedimentary processes which occurred in the upper slope of this confined basin were mainly current-induced. The vertical succession of contourite beds reveals past variations of the LIW current velocity over the last 200,000 years. This LIW palaeocirculation has been inferred from the grain-size distribution of contourite bed in two ‘Calypso’ giant piston cores (MD01-2472 and MD01-2434).After passing through the Channel of Corsica, this LIW flows to the Gibraltar Strait. Thus a comparison of contourite sequence and timing with those observed in the Gulf of Cadiz will be presented.
