Slopes of the Southern California Continental Borderland: A Regime of Mass Transport

The slopes of the California borderland are an important pathway for sediment transported from the mainland shelf, bank tops, and island platforms to the adjacen t basin floor. Sedimentologic conditions on the slope are governed by a complex interplay of depositional and mass-movement processes. Driving forces for mass movement are predominantly external to the sediment mass and include oceanographic, biologic, and tectonic factors. Sedimentologic and geotechnical properties of sediment, as well as certain environmental parameters such as declivity, may counter or enhance the driving forces by their effect on stability. Declivity, an environmental property commonly held to be a major factor controlling failure, is less important than either proximity to active sediment sources or the influence of external driving forces.