Éditeur(s) : Elsevier
Résumé : Analysis of new high-resolution seismic-reflection profiles, chirp profiles and previously published sidescan data, together with piston cores on the Danube Fan provide new insight into the recent sedimentation processes in the deep northwestern Black Sea.The latest channel-levee system on the Danube Fan developed probably during the Neoeuxinian lowstand (oxygene isotope stage 2) in a semi-freshwater basin with a water level about 100 m lower than today. Sediment supplied by the Danube was transported to the deep basin through the Viteaz Canyon, which was directly connected to the leveed channel of this system on the middle slope. Channel avulsion was common in the middle fan, as indicated by four main phases of bifurcation. Each phase developed after the same pattern: breaching of the lower and narrower left levee by turbidity currents, building of a unit of High Amplitude Reflection Packets (HARP) by the unchannelized flow while the former channel was abandoned, followed by initiation of a new meandering leveed channel. The northward migration through successive bifurcations is influenced by the asymmetry between levees, hence by the Coriolis effect. In the lower fan where the levees became too low to maintain a stable pathway for the turbiditic flows, channel migration occurred. Locations of HARPs and channels after bifurcation are controlled by the pre-existing bathymetry. Sedimentary deposits are confined between the high levees of unit 0 (the initial phase of the youngest channel-levee system) to the south, and the steep relief of the Dniepr Fan to the north.The HARPs of the most recent phase of avulsion are the most severely constrained by local topography and form a very narrow elongate structure that is at most half as thick as the previous HARPs. Their distal part is not covered by channel-levee systems and is visible both on sidescan mosaics and on chirp profiles and was sampled in core BLKS 98-20.Sea level controlled fan activity but the evolution of the last channel-levee system with several bifurcations during a single sea level lowstand suggests that the primary control of channel avulsion and sand delivery is probably autocyclic.The presence of important HARP sand bodies in the mud-rich Danube Fan is presumed by analogy with a similar seismic facies on the Amazon Fan and indicated by the sands cored in BLKS98-20. However, only drilling of the HARP units could verify this interpretation.
Marine Geology (0025-3227) (Elsevier), 2001-09 , Vol. 179 , N. 1-2 , P. 25-37

Droits : 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/2001/publication-474.pdf
DOI:10.1016/S0025-3227(01)00197-9
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00000/474/

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier Masson
Résumé : Extension fractures of two types defined by the mean stress σ were generated in a synthetic rock analogue material. When σ is very small, the fractures are mode I cracks with smooth surfaces. At higher σ, these surfaces have plumose topography, with the amplitude increasing with σ. Both SEM observations and mechanical measurements show that fractures/discontinuities in the latter case are initiated as dilatancy localization bands. They form under tensile or slightly compressive normal stress and can be seen as running constitutive instabilities. The similarity between the plumose fractography of the experimental fractures and natural joints suggests similarity in the formation mechanism.
ISSN: 1631-0721

hal-00585886
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00585886
DOI : 10.1016/j.crme.2011.01.002

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Springer Verlag
Résumé : International audience
Propagation energies for five examples of deformation bands in porous sandstones from four field sites in Nevada, Utah, and France were calculated by using the J-integral approach. Pure compaction bands that accommodate primarily closing displacements from the Valley of Fire (Nevada) site have a closing-mode band propagation energy of J I = 5.5 ± 1.6 kJ/m2. Shear-enhanced compaction bands having subequal amounts of normal (closing) and shear strains across them from the same site have propagation energies of J I = 6.11 ± 1.8 kJ/m2 and J II = 1.52 ± 0.5 kJ/m2 for closing and shearing modes respectively. Closing- and shearing-mode band propagation energies for shear-enhanced compaction bands from the Buckskin Gulch (Utah) site, 5.63 ± 1.7 and 1.91 ± 0.57 kJ/m2 and the Uchaux (France) site, 11.0 ± 3.3 and 2.35 ± 0.7 kJ/m2 respectively are comparable to the values for similar structures from the Valley of Fire site. Cataclastic deformation bands at the Orange (France) site accommodate significantly larger values of shear offset than do shear-enhanced compaction bands, with a ratio of shear to closing offset that exceeds 7. The calculated closing- and shearing-mode propagation energies for these shear bands, 17.8 ± 5.4 and 3.3 ± 1.0 kJ/m2 respectively are comparable to those for pure or shear-enhanced compaction bands deformed at approximately the same depth of burial. Strain softening of cataclastic compactional shear bands implies unstable shearing, whereas stable and perhaps strain-hardening shearing may be inferred for shear-enhanced compaction bands. Displacement-length scaling relations for shear-enhanced compaction bands of the form D∝L are consistent with the results and with suggestions of band thickening during growth obtained from bifurcation analyses and with field observations of shear zones in porous host rock.
ISSN: 0376-9429

hal-00750341
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00750341
DOI : 10.1007/s10704-012-9730-2

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD American Geophysical Union
Résumé : International audience
Fractures or discontinuities perpendicular to the least stress σ3 were generated in a synthetic rock analogue (granular, frictional, cohesive, and dilatant) material in axisymmetric extension tests. These fractures are of two types defined by the mean stress σ. When σ is very small, the fractures form through the mode I cracking at tensile σ3 equal to the material tensile strength. The fracture walls have smooth surfaces. At higher σ, these surfaces become rougher, with the topography features forming faint or delicate plumose patterns. The amplitude of the plumose topography increases with σ. The axial stress σ3 at fracturing reduces in magnitude and changes in sign with the σ increase. Thus σ3 orthogonal discontinuities can form at compressive σ3. SEM observations show that these discontinuities are deformation localization bands where the material is characterized by the heterogeneous decohesion and volume and porosity increase due to dilatancy. The band thickness is several grain sizes. At formation, the bands are not opened, so they are not mode I fractures. They become fractures with plumose fractography after the separation of the sample parts along the band. The formation mechanism of these discontinuities or fractures is not completely clear, but it is suggested that it represents a running constitutive instability in the form of dilatancy banding (with further σ increase the bands become inclined to σ1, i.e., shear). The similarity between the experimentally generated plumose surface fractures and natural joints is discussed, and it is suggested that they can be formed as propagating constitutive instabilities.
ISSN: 0148-0227

hal-00585846
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00585846
DOI : 10.1029/2010JB008104