Collapse of modern carbonate platform margins

Modern carbonate platform margins in the Florida-Bahama region have been viewed as depositional or constructional features. However, recent studies have shown that carbonate escarpments, such as the Blake-Bahama and West Florida Escarpments, are erosional in origin where the platform margins have a scalloped or horse-shoe shape. Seismic reflection data from one of these crescentic features along the west Florida platform margin indicate that it originated by large scale gravity collapse (slump). This collapse structure extends for at least 120 km along the margin and has removed about 350 m of strata as young as early Neogene. Although at least three generations of slope failure are recognized, catastrophic collapse appears to have occurred in the mid-Miocene. Gravitational instability due to high rates of sediment accumulation may have been the triggering mechanism. These data suggest that submarine slumping is an important process in the retreat of limestone escarpments and in the generation of carbonate megabreccia debris flows. Scalloped platform margins occur on satellite images of northern Exuma Sound and Columbus Basin in the Bahamas. The authors suggest that large-scale submarine slumping can cause elongation of structurally controlled intraplatform basins (Exuma South), and produce anomalous horse-shoe shaped basins (Columbus Basin) by mega-collapse processes.