Supercritical‐Flow Deposits: A New Quantitative Tool to Characterise Deep‐Marine Depositional Environments (Oligocene Annot Sandstones, <scp>SE</scp> France)?

ABSTRACT Despite a growing interest, few studies integrate quantitative supercritical‐flow deposit (SFD) distribution into paleoenvironmental reconstructions in deep‐marine settings. We present a re‐evaluation of the Oligocene Annot Sandstones (SE France) in terms of flow criticality, by examining the spatial distribution of SFDs. Proximal settings exhibit SFD proportion varying from ~90% to 40% with a common occurrence of cyclic steps, whereas distal environments show &lt;40% SFDs with antidunes and upper‐plane beds prevalent. Comparing SFD spatial distribution to other proxies in the Annot Sandstones and published proxies from the Eocene Ainsa‐Jaca basins (Spanish Pyrenees), SFD trends appear more consistent than those in sandstone percentages, or the distribution of the Bouma sequence divisions. Our approach achieves two goals: (1) establishing the reliability of quantitatively analysing SFDs as a proxy for paleoenvironment reconstructions, characterising the proximal‐to‐basin floor transition at ~40% SFDs and (2) providing fundamental insights into the formation processes compared to other proxies.