Primary Initiation of Submarine Canyons

TL;DR

This paper proposes that the initiation of submarine canyons is directly linked to Earth's early origin as a Jupiter-like gas-giant, driven by decompression dynamics rather than erosion or mantle convection.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, non-erosion mechanism for submarine canyon formation based on Earth's decompression history from a gas-giant state.

Findings

Submarine canyons may originate from Earth's decompression processes.

Earth's early gas-giant phase influences current geological features.

Decompression dynamics offer an alternative to mantle convection in explaining Earth's geology.

Abstract

The discovery of close-to-star gas-giant exo-planets lends support to the idea of Earth's origin as a Jupiter-like gas-giant and to the consequences of its compression, including whole-Earth decompression dynamics that gives rise, without requiring mantle convection, to the myriad measurements and observations whose descriptions are attributed to plate tectonics. I propose here another, unanticipated consequence of whole-Earth decompression dynamics: namely, a specific, dominant, non-erosion, underlying initiation-mechanism precursor for submarine canyons that follows as a direct consequence of Earth's early origin as a Jupiter-like gas-giant.