Deep-water sedimentation: processes, architecture and chronology

The grant will support graduate students working on seafloor geology on the continental margin off Eastern Canada. Students will be registered in a regular university graduate program, but much of their study and research will take place at the Geological Survey of Canada at Bedford Institute of Oceanography. With additional territory that will be acquired through the United Nations Law of the Sea process, Canada will need a new generation of scientists to properly understand and manage her vast marine territories. Seafloor conditions largely result from erosion and sedimentation which took place when most of Canada, including its continental shelves were covered by ice, and this framework is only slightly modified by modern processes. Students supported by this grant will investigate how sediment is and was transported from the shelf to the deep sea, how sediment is transported southward and westward in the Labrador Current, how deep canyons were cut, and how such sediment impacts the use of seabed resources. Studies of modern sediments also provide important analogues for understanding how ancient rocks formed, including deep-water reservoirs for oil and gas.