1.1.

The incentive

In their grand claim, Vrarde t al. (2015, p.72) state that Sedimentation does
not reflect local climatic varia- tions, nor does it account for local variations in
detrital input. Lakes or rivers are not taken into account on continents, and
deep sea fans are not modelled here. The amount of sediment in all major
deep sea fans, however, is estimated to represent less than 0.01% (order of
1014 to 1015 m3) of the total sediment volume in ocean.

El incentivo para esta revisin en abanicos submarinos o abanicos de aguas

profundas vino de un comentario sorprendente de la irrelevancia de los
abanicos submarinos en estudios geolgicos globales por Vrard et al. (2015)
publicado en la revista Journal of Palaeogeography. Vrard et al. (2015)
afirman que su modelo geodinmico mundial permite reconstruir los rasgos de
la superficie de la topografa en la tierra y en los ocanos adyacentes (es decir,
paleobatimetra) en cualquier lugar del mundo y en cualquier tiempo geolgico
durante los ltimos 600 millones de aos (Ma). En su gran demanda, Verard et
al. (2015, p.72) afirman que "La sedimentacin no refleja las variaciones
climticas locales, ni explica las variaciones locales en la entrada de detritos.
Lagos o ros no se tienen en cuenta en los continentes, y los abanicos de aguas
profundas no se modelan aqu.
Without providing any empirical data or peer-reviewed ref- erences to
substantiate their claim on submarine fans, the total exclusion of fan
sedimentation from consideration is not only geologically unrealistic but deeply
troubling. The fact is that during the past six decades, the importance of
modern and ancient submarine fans have been excruciatingly well documented in the geologic record (Menard, 1955; Bouma, 1962; McBride, 1962;
Klein, 1966; Jacka et al., 1968; Enos, 1969; Normark, 1970, 1978;
Curray and Moore, 1974; Nelson and Nilsen, 1984; Bouma et al., 1985a;
Mutti and Normark, 1987; Shanmugam and Moiola, 1988; Stow et al., 1990;
Weimer and Link, 1991; Mutti, 1992; Reading and Richards, 1994; Weimer
et al., 1994, 2000; Richards et al., 1998; Beaubouef et al., 2000; Stow and
Mayall, 2000; Piper and Normark, 2001; Mienert and Weaver, 2003; Mattern,
2005; Shanmugam, 1998, 2006a, 2012a; Mutti et al., 2009; Mulder, 2011;
Postma et al., 2014; SEPM STRATA, 2015; Constantinescu et al., 2015;
Pickering and Cantalejo, 2015; Pickering and Hiscott, 2015; among others).
Submarine fans constitute important sites of sediment accu- mulation in the
world's oceans (Fig. 1). Barnes and Normark (1985) compiled dimensions of 21
modern fans and 10 ancient systems. Fans have impressive dimensions (Fig. 2).
The world's largest submarine fan, known as the Bengal Fan, has a length of
3000 km, a width of 1430 km, and a sediment thickness of
16.5 km (Curray et al., 2003). The Bengal Fan virtually occupies the entire
length of the Bay of Bengal, and covers an area of

2800e3000 (103 km2) (Curray et al., 2003). These facts, which are
vital for reconstructing palaeogeography of the ancient rock
record, have prompted me to submit a discussion (Shanmugam,
2015a) on the article by Vrardet al. (2015). In reviewing my discussion
manuscript for the journal, the Associate Editor-in- Chief Prof. Zhong-Qiang
Chen has realized the global signifi- cance of submarine fans and related issues
for the readership of the journal and has invited me to submit a review article
to the journal. Furthermore, the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Palaeogeography Prof. Zeng-Zhao Feng strongly supported the need for such a
review article. In addition, Prof. Feng had invited me to join the editorial
committee of the journal. These events provided me the incentive for
compiling this retrospective for the Journal of Palaeogeography.
I would like to begin this article by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to the
extraordinary contributions made by the late Arnold Bouma, Professor Emiliano
Mutti, and the late Bill Nor- mark (Fig. 3) to this research domain during the
past 60 years.