This geomorphologic and sedimentary study aims at investigating the fluvial systems of the Seine River and its paleo-tributaries that are the Touques, the Dives and the Orne Rivers. These rivers all belong to the same catchment area, so-called Bay of Seine catchment (BSC). The BSC area of those systems is bordered by the Channel to the North, and by hilly land regions (i.e. zone bocaine and Perche) to the South with exception to the Seine River which extends further in a South Eastern direction. From the end of the Early Pleistocene, the geological background of the catchment area (i.e. Armorican massif & Parisian basin) was incised and eroded by the fluvial systems. These sedimentary and geomorphological processes are now recorded in fluvial terraces. In the BSC area, the paleo-Seine followed a different evolution from the other coastal rivers. Due to the different geomorphologic and sedimentary Quaternary records, a plury-disciplinary approach complemented by ESR datations was carried out for assessing the role of structural , climatic and glacio-eustatic forcings on the evolution of the BSC area.Geological structures partially control the organization of the drainage network. The European geodynamical changes occurring during the Cenozoic associated to the Alpine compressive deformations s.l. indirectly shaped the BSC. Such geodynamical phase induced the multi-phase Tertiary uplift of the Armorican massif, and thus build the hilly areas of the Perche and the Western extension of the zone bocaine. During the Neogene, this slow and continuous uplift gave the BSC its North South orientation, and therefore allowed the inception of a sedimentary transit towards the English Channel. Upstream, the Perche bulge induced a radial drainage (i.e. Risle, Touques, Dives and Orne Rivers) around its dome-shaped structure. Whereas downstream, the North Eastern-oriented monoclinal structure of the Jurassic units of the Parisian basin forced the drainage on an Eastern direction. In addition to structural control, the climate is another primary forcing that shapes the BSC from the Middle Pleistocene onward. This control participated in the evolution of the river dynamics and valley forms at different temporal scales from glacial/interglacial cycles (~100 ka) to rapid climate changes (~1 ka). New observations led on terrace deposits show that there is not a single type of periglacial river (i.e. gravel-bed braided river). These differences were explained by sub-basin properties: lithologies, sediment supplies or inherited structures. The Quaternary glacio-eustatic forcing only played a role in the downstream part of fluvial systems. In the meandering reach of the lower Seine valley (Elbeuf-Le Havre), sedimentary records investigated in the stepped terraces allowed the identification of several relative sea-level highstands since the Middle Pleistocene. Cyclic base-level changes, recorded in the succession of fluvial periglacial gravels overlain by silt to sandy tidal deposits, were linked to major cold-to-temperate climate transitions. Despite these sedimentary records, the whole BSC only preserved paleo-geometries of Quaternary estuaries by a widening of the downstream part of fluvial systems (Dives, Touques, and Seine Rivers).

EXPLOR_STEP=$WICRI_ROOT/Wicri/France/explor/LeHavreV1/Data/France/Analysis

HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_STEP/biblio.hfd -nk 000204 | SxmlIndent | more

HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_AREA/Data/France/Analysis/biblio.hfd -nk 000204 | SxmlIndent | more

{{Explor lien
   |wiki=    Wicri/France
   |area=    LeHavreV1
   |flux=    France
   |étape=   Analysis
   |type=    RBID
   |clé=     Hal:tel-01136447
   |texte=   Sedimentary responses of a coastal fluvial system to tectonic, climatic and glacio-eustatic forcings during the Plio-Quaternary : the example of the Bay of Seine catchment (Seine, Touques and Dives rivers)
}}