Submarine Mock Valleys

Abstract

Those peculiar features found in the sea floors of continental margins and generally known as "submarine valleys" have been confidently interpreted by a number of geologists as the product of streaming and weathering during a recent epoch of emergence and as not yet obliterated by marine deposition during a still more recent time of submergence. It is not intended to imply by what here follows that the method of submarine-valley formation thus outlined is either impossible or non-operative. The object of this essay is to point out certain difficulties in the way of the general acceptance of that method, thus supplementing the writings of several authors cited below, and at the same time to suggest the consideration of other methods for the production of submarine valleys. It is desired also to urge the maintenance of an open mind on the problem, inasmuch as certain collateral but essential consequences of the above-outlined method of submarine-valley production have not yet been verified; indeed, have not even been considered in the writings of some of its more convinced advocates. Nor have alternative methods been given the hospitable and thorough discussion that Chamberlin has so well shown to be essential in impartial and decisive investigation.