ORCID

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Turbidity currents are increasingly recognised as a key mechanism for transporting sediment into the deep ocean, yet their structure, behaviour, and long-term impact in Antarctic submarine canyons remain poorly understood owing to a lack of direct observations. Using a year-long mooring deployed in Wilson Canyon, western Ross Sea, we obtained the first in situ measurements of a dilute turbidity current associated with a slow moving dense water overflow in Antarctica, documenting a single event that lasted for thirteen days and exhibited a distinct internal structure: a dense frontal head containing coarse sediment and cold, saline shelf-derived water, followed by a prolonged body composed of finer sediment mixed with entrained ambient water. These observations provide further direct evidence that large volumes of dense water exported across Antarctic continental margins can trigger and sustain turbidity currents, supporting new insights into sediment resuspension and deposition in Antarctic submarine canyons and across continental margins, linking Antarctic Bottom Water formation to deep-sea sediment transport processes.

Publication Date

2026-09-11

Publication Title

Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans

Volume

131

Issue

9

Acceptance Date

2026-01-01

Deposit Date

2026-09-01

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council and ARIES DTP [grant number NE/S007334/1], Earth Science New Zealand (ESNZ formerly known as NIWA), and the University of Plymouth for their funding and contributions to this work. Jenny Gales was funded by the European Union (ERC, ACE, 101169829). Funding for mooring logistics and support was provided by New Zealand’s Antarctic Science Platform Opportunity Fund, contract no. ASP22301.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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