The Lago Sofia conglomerate: Debris flow to hyperconcentrated flow deposits in a Cretaceous Submarine Channel, Southern Chile

Abstract

The Lago Sofia conglomerates encased in the Cretaceous Cerro Toro Formation, southern Chile, represent a gigantic submarine channel system developed along a foredeep trough. The channel system consists of several tributaries along the trough margin and a trunk channel along the trough axis. Voluminous debris flows were generated ubiquitously along the tract of the submarine channel mainly by the failure of nearby channel banks or slopes. The flows transformed immediately into multiphase flows and resulted in very thick-bedded mass-flow deposits with a peculiar structure sequence. The mass-flow deposits commonly overlie fluted or grooved surfaces and consist of a lower division of clast-supported and imbricated pebble-cobble conglomerate with common basal inverse grading, and an upper division of clast-to matrix-supported and disorganized pebble conglomerate or pebbly mudstone with abundant intraformational clasts. The structure sequence suggests a temporal succession of a turbidity current, a bipartite hyperconcentrated flow with active clast collisions near the flow base, and a cohesive debris flow probably with a rigid plug. The multiphase flow is interpreted to have resulted from transformation of clast-rich but cohesive debris flows. Cohesive debris flows appear to transform more easily into dilute flow types in subaqueous environments because they are apt to hydroplane. This is in contrast to the flow transitions in sub-aerial environments where noncohesive debris flows are dominant and difficult to hydroplane.