Santa Barbara Basin
Recently collected EM300 multibeam bathymetric data in the Santa Barbara Channel region of Southern California reveal extensive areas of mass wasting along the northern flank of the Santa Barbara Basin (Fig. 1):
Fig. 1
In addition to the large (134 km2) Goleta slump located offshore of Coal Oil Point, several smaller underwater landslides and potential incipient slides have been identified by MBARI geologists Gary Greene and Norman Maher.
Using MBARI’s ROV Ventana in October, 1998 they observed and sampled the Goleta slump. Detailed analyses are presently under way and MBARI will revisit these sites again in May, 2000 with the ROV Tiburon. Examples of the smaller slide features are shown in (Fig. 2). Additional data is needed to fully appraise mass wasting and landslide potential along this Southern California borderland.
Fig. 2
MBARI geologists Greene and Maher recently presented their preliminary findings at the Workshop on the Prediction of Underwater Landslide and Slump Occurrence and Tsunami Hazards off of Southern California in Los Angeles. They also compiled the following map (Fig. 3) of currently available bathymetric data for this Southern California region.
Fig. 3