The relative impacts of autogenic and allogenic controls on the architectural evolution of deep-sea fans are not well constrained, mainly because of the difficulty in evaluating the role of each control on any specific stratigraphic pattern. This study presents four-dimensional (4D) forward stratigraphic modelling of the Late Quaternary Congo Axial Fan, which provides new insights on forcing factors of sedimentation over time. This modelling is based on a geological model describing successive sedimentary progradational/retrogradational cycles in the Congo turbidite system during the last 38 kyr. Analyses of geophysical and marine core data have suggested that the architectural cycles were controlled by changes in fluvial sediment discharge in relation to arid and humid periods in the Congo River watershed. The aims of this study were to simulate the architectural evolution of the Late Quaternary Congo Axial Fan from 210 ka to the present and investigate the factors controlling sedimentation using DionisosFlow™, a process-based stratigraphic forward modelling software. For this objective, several scenarios were tested to simulate the role of autogenic and climate forcings based on proxies recorded in marine sediments. The modelling results confirmed that climatic variations of sediment and water discharge succeeded in reproducing the timing, position, and sediment volume of basin-scale progradational/retrogradational cycles. The best-fit simulations particularly emphasise the role of continental vegetation cover expansion, governed by the precession-driven West African monsoon, on the sediment flux to the deep-marine environment. This vegetation/climate coupling acts directly on the transport capacity of flow over time by controlling the magnitude of river runoff and the timing of sediment production, storage, and transfer from the continent to the ocean. Thus, our results confirm the utility of stratigraphic forward models in constraining “source-to-sink” models for the architectural evolution of submarine fans.

自生和同种异质控制对深海扇形构造演化的相对影响没有得到很好的限制，这主要是因为难以评估每种控制在任何特定地层模式中的作用。这项研究提出了晚期第四纪刚果轴流风机的三维（4D）正向地层学模型，这为随着时间推移的沉积强迫因素提供了新的见解。该模型基于地质模型，该模型描述了过去38年中刚果浊石系统中的连续沉积演化/回生循环。对地球物理和海洋核心数据的分析表明，刚果河流域的干旱和潮湿时期，河流泥沙流量的变化控制了建筑周期。这项研究的目的是模拟从210 ka到现在的第四纪晚期刚果轴流风机的结构演变，并使用基于过程的地层正演模拟软件DionisosFlow™研究控制沉降的因素。为了实现这一目标，根据海洋沉积物中记录的代理，测试了几种情景以模拟自生和气候强迫的作用。模拟结果证实，沉积物和排水的气候变化成功地再现了流域规模的渐进/再生循环的时间，位置和沉积物量。最佳拟合模拟特别强调了由岁差驱动的西非季风控制的大陆植被覆盖度扩展对深海环境沉积物通量的作用。通过控制河流径流的大小以及沉积物的产生，存储和从大陆到海洋的转移的时间，这种植被/气候的耦合直接作用于随时间流的运输能力。因此，我们的结果证实了地层正向模型在限制“源到汇”模型对潜艇爱好者的建筑演变中的作用。