Seafloor Sunday #83: Fraser River Delta

Most of the images we see of river deltas show the part above water. This week's Seafloor Sunday image is from the submarine part of the Fraser River delta in Vancouver, British Columbia. This image is courtesy of the VENUS marine observatory project and highlights one of the several projects using the seafloor instrumentation to do science. In this case, researchers are investigating the occurrence and causes of submarine slope failures:

Coastal communities and infrastructure surrounding the southern Strait of Georgia would be at risk in the case of a submarine slope failure on the foreslope of the Fraser River delta. Small slope failures on Roberts Bank could rupture power transmission cables that supply electricity to Vancouver Island, while large failures could damage or even destroy important infrastructure such as the Deltaport and Tsawwassen ferry terminal. Furthermore, the tsunami generated by such a failure would propagate across the Strait of Georgia and impact the shorelines of the Gulf and San Juan Islands as well as mainland British Columbia.

In addition to the obvious channel features heading down the delta slope into deeper water, there is a "wrinkly" texture across the slope. I wonder if that's the seafloor expression of slow creep of the delta front?

Here's an image of the Fraser River delta from FlashEarth zoomed out a bit.