Contourites as a Primary Regional Control on Deep-Water Sediment Deposition: Examples from the Mozambique Basin

Summary The South-Central Mozambique Basin is a magmatic margin that originated during the break-up of Gondwana. Until the Early Paleocene, the main sedimentary processes controlling deep-water deposition were gravitational and density currents. The subsequent Early Tertiary Sequence (ETS) constitutes the interval of interest for this study. During the Eocene, marine passages were opened and closed around the globe ( Rebesco et al, 2014 ). This likely resulted in a change in the oceanic circulation pattern and distribution and strength of currents. In the Mozambique basin, this event coincided with a time when the deep water environments were starved of sediment supply. The combination of these two factors could have resulted in a deep water environment dominated by water-bottom current activity.