Although Amazon Fan is one of the largest deep-sea fans in the world, it is typical of "mud rich" fans developed on passive margins. Prior to ODP drilling in 1994, the distribution of sedimentary facies within Amazon Fan was inferred from high-resolution seismic, GLORIA side-scan, SeaBeam swath-mapping and piston-core data. The aggradational channel-levee system was recognized as the basic depositional unit of the fan. High-amplitude reflections (termed HARs) beneath the channel axis were interpreted as coarse-grained channel-fill deposits. More laterally extensive high-amplitude reflections packets (termed HARPs) at the bases of channel-levee systems were interpreted as coarse sediment deposited either from flows spreading laterally outward from a channel mouth (i.e. depositional lobe), or from flows issuing through a crevasse in a levee during an avulsion event (i.e. crevasse splays). Although only one channel-levee system was active at any given time, repeated channel avulsion developed groups of overlapping channel-levee systems, or channel-levee complexes across the upper to middle fan surface. Older levee complexes buried within the fan are separated by thick, regionally extensive mass-transport deposits (Damuth et al., 1988; Manley and Flood, 1988; Flood et al., 1991; Pirmez and Flood, 1995).