Assessment of Submarine Landslide Volume

Type Article
Acceptance Date 2023-08-16 IN PRESS
Language English
Author(s) Falk Sager Thore1, Urlaub Morelia1, Berndt Christian1
Affiliation(s) 1 : GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany
Source Under Review at Geo-Marine Letters. (Research Square Platform LLC) In Press
DOI 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3205387/v1
Note This is a preprint ; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal
Keyword(s) volume assessment, pre-failure seafloor reconstruction, landslide volume, emplacement mechanism
Abstract

Submarine landslides pose major geohazards as they can destroy seafloor infrastructure such as communication cables and cause tsunamis. The volume of material displaced with the landslide is one factor that determines its hazard and is typically estimated using bathymetric and/or seismic datasets. Here, we review methods to determine the initial failed volume based on a well-constrained case study, the Ana Slide, a small slope failure in the Eivissa Channel off the eastern Iberian Peninsula. We find that not only the availability and quality of datasets but also the emplacement mechanism determines the quality of the volume estimation. In general, the volume estimation based on comparison of modern and reconstructed pre-failure seafloor topographies yields conservative, yet robust volumes for the amount of material that was mobilized. In contrast, volume estimated from seismic data may be prone to overestimation if no detailed constraints on the nature of the chaotic, transparent, or disrupted seismic facies commonly used to identify landslide material are available.

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