Speculations on the geological causes of backscatter variation on GLORIA sonographs from the Mississippi and De Soto fans,Gulf of Mexico

Published analyses of 61 piston cores, bottom photographs, and dredge samples provide ground truth for 6.5 kHz GLORIA side-scan sonar records of the Mississippi and De Soto fans. GLORIA sound appears to have penetrated through up to 4 m of foraminiferal ooze and terrigenous mud to reach sandy sediments. Possible primary geological causes of high backscatter include slump structures at various scales (1->1,000 cm), possible debris flow fabrics (roughness 1–100 cm) in sandy (5–21%) sediments, and thin ironstone crusts with a roughness of tens of centimeters.