With this contribution we use a pair of overlapping 3D seismic surveys and two exploration wells to document the response of long-lived slope channels to the onset of bottom currents sweeping the lower slope in the NE Rockall Basin, offshore Ireland. Downslope gravity current activity, linked to a phase of uplift, prevailed throughout the Eocene and led to the formation of multiple channels, most notably a large-scale sinuous channel complex (Channel 4 Complex) tied to a persistent sediment entry point on the margin. Channels fed lobes on the floor of the basin, with increased axial tilting forcing gravity currents to flow parallel to the base of slope. A phase of margin-wide differential subsidence and basin deepening in the Late Eocene then activated bottom current circulation across the basin. Northward-flowing bottom currents first erosionally refashioned the lower slope creating a prominent unconformity with contourites that then initially forming infill drifts. Bottom currents swept along and obliquely upslope, building plastered drifts that straddled the lower sections of the still active channels. The drifts modified and amplified the spurs separating the active channels, with interaction between along and downslope processes accreting sediment that built and maintained channel relief and allowed the channel mouths to extend further basinward over and across the earlier lobes. Contourite-forced channel extension on account of lower slope depositional re-profiling represents another manifestation of the interplay between slope channels and bottom currents. In the case of NE Rockall, the accreted base of slope wedge and mounded geometry resembles similar features elsewhere along the eastern Rockall margin. Those have previously been ascribed to mass-transport and base-up channel initiation, however, the similarities are so striking that we propose that these also are the result of lower slope re-profiling by bottom currents.

凭借这一贡献，我们使用一对重叠的 3D 地震勘探和两个勘探井来记录长寿命斜坡通道对席卷爱尔兰近海 NE Rockall 盆地下斜坡的底流开始的响应。与抬升阶段相关的下坡重力流活动在整个始新世盛行，并导致了多个通道的形成，最显着的是一个与边缘持久沉积物入口点相连的大型蜿蜒通道复合体（通道 4 复合体）。渠道为盆地底部的叶片提供水源，轴向倾斜的增加迫使重力流平行于斜坡底部流动。晚始新世的一个边缘范围的差异沉降和盆地加深阶段随后激活了整个盆地的底部电流环流。向北流动的底流首先侵蚀改造了较低的斜坡，与等高岩形成了明显的不整合，然后最初形成了填充漂移。底部洋流沿着倾斜的上坡扫过，形成了横跨仍然活跃的河道下部的灰泥漂流。漂移修改并放大了分隔活动河道的马刺，沿和下坡过程之间的相互作用增加了沉积物，这些沉积物建立并维持了河道减压，并允许河道口向盆地进一步延伸，越过早期的裂片。由于低坡沉积重新剖面，轮廓岩迫使河道延伸代表了斜坡河道和底部水流之间相互作用的另一种表现。在 NE Rockall 的情况下，斜坡楔形和丘状几何形状的增生底部与东罗考尔边缘其他地方的类似特征相似。这些先前已被归因于质量传输和底部通道起始，然而，相似之处是如此惊人，以至于我们认为这些也是底部流对较低坡度重新剖面的结果。