Page 24 - Maldonado_Stanley_1976

20 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EARTH SCIENCES

Bizerte Canyon

km 924

FIGURE 15.-Profiles across the head of Bizerte Canyon showing fault displacement (arrow on
sparker record) and unconsolidated sediment in the axis. The irregular configuration of the
valley fioor (arrow, 3.5 kHz profile) suggests slumping.

nary reef and diapiric structures on its northwest (Auzende et al., 1974, fig. 3). Unconsolidated
slope (Zarudzki, 1972: 18). Pliocene-Quaternary sequences are recorded in the
CANYON (Environment 10).-0ne major subma- canyon head; the irregular surface of the axis (ar-
rine valley, the Bizerte Canyon, has been recorded row on 3.5 kHz record) may be due to displacement
in our records on the northern part of the Strait of the recent sediment fili.
(Figure 15, km 930-970). This canyon extends THE STRAIT N ARROWS (Environment Il).-The
north-northeast to the Tyrrhenian . Basin plain narrowest portion of the Strait between Sicily and
(Carter et al., 1972), and cuts deeply into the Tunisia presents a diverse topography including
northeast extension of the Galite Archipelago shallow banks, intermediate depth basins, and
(broad uplift environment 3). The eastern wall of bathyal-neritic environments. Cores in this region
this canyon appears somewhat steeper. The sparker are distinctive in that they include a high propor-
profile (see arrow) shows possible fault offset under tion of coarse bioclastic sand. Core KS 12 (956
the canyon axis; this feature may be related with meters) in the deeper, small, enclosed basin (en-
the predominant northeast-southwest structural vironment 6) in the center of the Strait is inter-
trend mapped at the western end of the Strait esting in this respect. The prominent coarse sand