The quantifiable clinothem – types,shapes and geometric relationships in the Plio‐Pleistocene Giant Foresets Formation,Taranaki Basin,New Zealand

The understanding of how clinoforms develop is approached based on shape and dimensions, correlation between geometric parameters, and internal characteristics of clinothems bounded by clinoform surfaces in high‐resolution 2D seismic data from the Giant Foresets Formation, Taranaki Basin, offshore New Zealand. The study subdivides the observed clinothems to identify nine types: 1. Oblique 2. Tangential oblique 3. Tangential oblique chaotic 4. Sigmoidal symmetrical 5. Sigmoidal divergent 6. Sigmoidal chaotic 7. Asymmetrical top‐heavy 8. Asymmetrical bottom‐heavy 9. Complex. Accommodation is a dominant control on the type of clinothem that develops, whereby limited accommodation promotes clinothems with significant shelf‐edge advance and low trajectory angles, while increasing accommodation promotes higher trajectory angles and increased deposition on the shelf. Further variations in shape, slope and deposition are influenced by many factors of which sediment influx appears be a fundamental driver. Sigmoidal clinothems tend to show a strong relationship between their maximum thickness and average thickness, their overall slope and maximum foreset angle, along with a high correlation between average thickness and toe advance. This suggests that they distribute sediment in a manner that may be possible to predict and quantify. The increasing steepness of the foreset slope from bottom‐heavy to symmetrical to top‐heavy clinothems, respectively, is dominantly the result of decreasing sediment influx. The clinothems with the steepest slopes, along with chaotic clinothems, are associated with comparatively large toe advance suggesting a strong link between over‐steepened slopes and/or collapse, and processes promoting sediment deposition along the basin floor. Apart from toe advance, the two types of chaotic clinothems develop differently from each other, and from their assumed parent‐clinothem. Tangential oblique chaotic forms steepen, and shelf‐edge advance is limited, suggesting upper slope collapse. Sigmoidal chaotic clinothems have comparatively higher shelf‐edge advance, lower shelf‐edge trajectories and gentler slopes and profiles, suggesting different processes are responsible for their development and resulting shape.