| Abstract | EuroSTRATAFORM, a US project involving Research Institutions set up to investigate the formation of sedimentary strata on continental margins, and with other relevant, current activities organised at national and international levels.
EURODELTA therefore combines our resources, expertise and state-of-the-art technologies (spanning from ultra-high-resolution geophysical records to advanced methods for geochronological calibration) to undertake the systematic comparison, validation and integration of existing data with a bearing on the nature of prodeltas. The immediate aim is define and quantify: the impact of known recent depositional events (e.g. exceptional river floods) on prodeltas; how water-mass circulation relates to shear stress changes on the sea floor and to the growth of prograding clinoforms which characterise prodeltas; the relationships between prodelta growth and short-term (century-scale) changes in river supply brought about by, for example, climate changes or local human impacts; the link between catchment-based records on land and the pattern of shelf sedimentation and nutrient flux in prodeltas over the time period concerned; how prodeltas have evolved and, in particular, how major phases of delta construction relate to episodes of increased river discharge; the sediment budgets during the period of the modern high sea-level stand, to establish temporal and spatial changes in the rates and patterns of sediment accumulation during the last 5,500 years, and, more especially, during the last few hundred years; the detailed architecture of prodeltas, and of distinctive units of sediment accumulation. The construction of forecast models will provide best-estimate scenarios of future shoreline and prodelta growth and stability, taking into account historical trends and the effects of the extensive regulation that now prevails within the Mediterranean watershed.
The main objective of EURODELTA is to pool existing geomorphological, geophysical, stratigraphic, sedimentological, and oceanographic data related to prodelta formation and post formation evolution during the recent past. |
