Abstract
East Lake, located at Cape Bounty (Melville Island, Canadian High Arctic), was mapped using a high-resolution swath bathymetric sonar and a 12 kHz sub-bottom profiler, allowing for the first time the imaging of widespread occurrence of mass movement deposits (MMDs) in a Canadian High Arctic Lake. Mass movements occurred mostly on steep slopes located away from deltaic sedimentation. The marine to lacustrine transition in the sediment favours the generation of mass movements where the underlying massive mud appears to act as a gliding surface for the overlying varved deposits. Based on acoustic stratigraphy, we have identified at least two distinct events that triggered failures in the lake during the last 2000 years. The synchronicity of multiple failures and their widespread distribution suggest a seismic origin that could be related to the nearby Gustaf-Lougheed Arch seismic zone. Further sedimentological investigations on the MMDs are however required to confirm their age and origin.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by NSERC through Discovery grants to P.L., P.F., and S.L., NSERC Northern supplement grants to P.F., the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec through equipment grants to P.L., and the Polar Continental Shelf Program through grants to P.F. and S.L. Flavio Anselmetti, Marc DeBatist and Editor Sebastian Krastel provided helpful comments that improved the quality of this paper.
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Normandeau, A., Joyal, G., Lajeunesse, P., Francus, P., Lamoureux, S., Lapointe, F. (2016). Late-Holocene Mass Movements in High Arctic East Lake, Melville Island (Western Canadian Arctic Archipelago). In: Lamarche, G., et al. Submarine Mass Movements and their Consequences. Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research, vol 41. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20979-1_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20979-1_31
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