Subaqueous Mass Movements and their Consequences: Assessing Geohazards, Environmental Implications and Economic Significance of Subaqueous Landslides
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The challenges facing submarine mass movement researchers and engineers are plentiful and exciting. This book follows several high-profile submarine landslide disasters that have reached the world's attention over the past few years. For decades, researchers have been mapping the world's mass movements. Their significant impacts on the Earth by distributing sediment on phenomenal scales is undeniable. Their importance in the origins of buried resources has long been understood. Their hazard potential ranges from damaging to apocalyptic, frequently damaging local infrastructure and sometimes devastating whole coastlines. Moving beyond mapping advances, the subaqueous mass movement scientists and practitioners are now also focussed on assessing the consequences of mass movements, and the measurement and modelling of events, hazard analysis and mitigation. Many state-of-the-art examples are provided in this book, which is produced under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Program S4SLIDE (Significance of Modern and Ancient Submarine Slope LandSLIDEs).
Slope failures along the deformation front of the Cascadia margin: linking slide morphology to subduction zone parameters
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Published:September 30, 2019
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CiteCitation
Michael Riedel, Michelle M. Côté, Morelia Urlaub, Jacob Geersen, Nastasja A. Scholz, Kathrin Naegeli, George D. Spence, 2019. "Slope failures along the deformation front of the Cascadia margin: linking slide morphology to subduction zone parameters", Subaqueous Mass Movements and their Consequences: Assessing Geohazards, Environmental Implications and Economic Significance of Subaqueous Landslides, D.G. Lintern, D.C. Mosher, L.G. Moscardelli, P.T. Bobrowsky, C. Campbell, J. Chaytor, J. Clague, A. Georgiopoulou, P. Lajeunesse, A. Normandeau, D. Piper, M. Scherwath, C. Stacey, D. Turmel
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Abstract
Marine acoustic data are used to map and characterize submarine slope failure along the accretionary prism of Cascadia. Two main styles of slope failure are identified: (1) failures with curved head scarps, which are predominantly associated with incoherent debris-flow deposits; and (2) failures with rectangular head scarps, which are predominantly associated with intact sediment blocks. Rectangular head scarps mostly occur on thrust ridges with slope angles <16° and ridge heights <650 m, whereas curved head scarps occur predominantly on steeper and higher ridges. Off Vancouver Island, failure style and head-scarp geometry also change with ridge azimuth. We propose that the curved head scarps and debris flows may be a result of higher kinetic forcing of the downsliding sediments and a higher degree of mixing. At the more gently sloped, less elevated ridges, the kinetic forcing may be smaller, which leads to intact failure masses. Extensional faults at ridges with curved scarps may result from oversteepening and collapse of the sediments that cannot withstand their own weight due to limited internal shear strength. The slide geometries and potential controls on failure style may inform subsequent studies in assessing the risks for tsunami generation from submarine slope failures along the Cascadia margin.
- accretionary wedges
- acoustical methods
- bathymetry
- British Columbia
- California
- Canada
- Cascadia subduction zone
- continental margin
- correlation
- debris flows
- deformation
- East Pacific
- failures
- faults
- geometry
- geophysical methods
- geophysical profiles
- geophysical surveys
- kinetics
- landslides
- marine environment
- mass movements
- Mendocino County California
- North Pacific
- Northeast Pacific
- ocean floors
- Pacific Ocean
- scarps
- seismic methods
- seismic profiles
- shear strength
- slope stability
- slopes
- slumping
- subduction zones
- submarine environment
- surveys
- United States
- Vancouver Island
- Western Canada