UNCLASSIFIED 



SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF THIS P ACE(Whm Data Enlarad) 



More than half of the area surveyed is underlain by two thick sections of 

 Coastal Plain sediments characterized by seaward-dipping progradational internal 

 beds which generate a characteristic acoustic pattern on seismic reflection 

 records. These beds are exposed on the shelf floor in places and elsewhere are 

 covered by a thin sediment blanket. -Samples of these extensive units indicate 

 that one is of Cretaceous age and the other of Oligocene age. Both units consist 

 predominantly of fine quartz sand. 



Other sediment units closely underlying the shelf floor consist of planar- 

 to complex-bedded sheet and channel-fill deposits of predominantly quartz sand 

 or biogenic calcium carbonate. These deposits range in age from Eocene to 

 Holocene. 



Modern sediment accretion on the inner shelf appears to be largely restricted 

 to the shoal fields off Cape Lookout and Cape Fear, and to inlet shoals along the 

 coast. Elsewhere on the inner shelf floor, modern sediments are thin and discon- 

 tinuous, and modem shelf processes appear to be largely confined to reworking, 

 winnowing, and redepositing older deposits. 



UNCLASSIFIED 



SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF THIS PAGEfHTien Data Entered) 



