Dr. Peter Flemings Pennsylvania State University Department of GeoSciences Passive continental margins such as the eastern seaboard of the United States and the Gulf of Mexico are extraordinarily active places where overpressured sediments, subsea mud volcanoes, massive submarine landslides, and exotic deepwater biologic communities all dynamically coexist. These overpressures are present in a zone of severe slope erosion and this suggests that elevated pore pressures are driving submarine landslides on the continental slope. How overpressures are generated and how they are dissipated is a fascinating problem of broad application.
Submarine landslides can induce tsunamis that place coastal populations at risk.
Seeps expel fluids that support remarkable deep sea biological communities. Overpressures control how hydrocarbons migrate and how they are trapped. Finally, geopressures are the single most costly component of drilling safe and stable wells in the deepwater continental slope.