Principal Investigator: James A. Austin, Jr.

Funded by: Office of Naval Research

Regional seismic reflection surveys have delineated a wedge of late Quaternary sediment extending 150 km south from the Hudson apron along the edge of the continental shelf off New Jersey. The bottom of the sediment wedge is defined by a prominent reflector (R), assumed to represent an erosional surface carved during a low-stand of sea level, probably corresponding to the Wisconsin Maximum glaciation.

A 3-D reflection survey of a 5 x 0.5 km area of the southern part of the wedge was carried out in October 1989. Line spacing was 10 m and shot spacing 2.5 m. Navigation achieved position accuracies to <5 m. A series of cores both within and near the survey area yielded sedimentological and faunal data for ground-truth of the seismic results.

The survey shows that the outer shelf sediment wedge has a complex internal structure unrelated to the present seafloor morphology. Continued studies on the data are in progress.