The Eastern Mississippi Fan is a moderate size, mud-dominated, Pleistocene submarine fan in the northeastern deep Gulf of Mexico. Analysis of 6900 km of multifold seismic data identified eight discrete depositional sequences that are interpreted to be coeval to the younger sequences in the Western Mississippi Fan.
All sequences consist of channel-levee deposits and slides.
All sequences are affected by a series of volumetrically and areally large submarine slides, characterized by hummocky to chaotic reflections. Individual slides are up to 5000 square km in area. The channel-levee systems within six of the sequences are derived from sediment sources located northwest in the Mississippi Canyon lease area. The channel-levee systems within the remaining two sequences are downfan continuations of systems in the Western Mississippi Fan. These changing position of the channels presumably reflects changes in the position of the shallow marine depocenter that fed the fan throughout the Pleistocene.