Caracterização De Paleoambiente Submarino Com Side Scan Sonar, Ecobatímetro E Amostras De Fundo – Bacia De Campos - Rj

Side scan sonar images acquired by Petrobrás in<br>Campos Basin during the year of 1998, presented<br>large linear features which lay down on the sea floor,<br>at a water depth of 110m. The features were also<br>registered in bathymetric profiles and have been<br>operationally described as beachrocks.<br>In this study, specially designed softwares for digital<br>image processing allowed a better view of one of<br>these occurrences, in the central portion of Campos<br>Basin, in an area close to the shelf brake.<br>Based on the studies conducted on the sonographic<br>images, regarding the submarine environment and the<br>information provided by samples, which were<br>collected directly from the sea floor, the features were<br>assumed to be old sand ridges which laid down along<br>the shoreline. Afterwards, the ridges were cemented,<br>in a period of time during which the relative sea level<br>was stabilized, which is thought to have happened<br>15.800 years BP. When the sea level re-start to rise<br>up, the morphologies were drowned, becoming a rigid<br>substract for the instalation of thick algal banks.