"Drainage systems" associated with mid-ocean channels and submarine yazoos: Alternative to submarine fan depositional systems

"Submarine drainage systems" associated with mid-ocean channels and Yazoo River-type tributaries in small ocean basins represent a contrast to deep-sea fan depositional systems. Deep-sea fans are diverging sediment-dispersal systems of distributary fan valleys. Deep-sea channel-submarine-yazoo systems, on the other hand, form centripetally converging patterns of tributaries and yazoo-type satellite channels that join a major "basin-draining" (mid-ocean) channel. The facies model for such systems is characterized by randomly stacked fining-upward, gravelly, and sandy channel-fill and submarine point-bar sequences of the main channel encased in fine-grained overbank deposits. Second-order channels contain sandy proximal overbank deposits, whereas the levees of the main channel are predominantly composed of silt and clay. Second-order channels may be braided and may broaden into braid plains. Morphology and surficial sediment distribution have been studied within the Northwest Atlantic Mid-Ocean Channel of the Labrador Sea and its associated levees and yazoo-type (and other) tributaries.