Quaternary shelf deposits and drainage pattern off the French and Belgian coasts

High-resolution reflection seismic data recorded in the Southern Bight of the North Sea have allowed to draw a first general reconstruction of the topography of the base of the Quaternary deposits. The morphological aspects of the erosion surface have been confronted with the knowledge of the quaternary history of the Belgian coastal plain, yielding a hypothesis about the origin of the paleolandforms and of the present-day offshore morphology. The evolution of this erosion surface is also related to the present-day knowledge of the river terraces in the coastal backland.