Table Of ContentAdvances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research
Sebastian Krastel · Jan-Hinrich Behrmann
David Völker · Michael Stipp
Christian Berndt · Roger Urgeles
Jason Chaytor · Katrin Huhn
Michael Strasser · Carl Bonnevie Harbitz Editors
Submarine Mass
Movements and
Their Consequences
6th International Symposium
Submarine Mass Movements
and Their Consequences
Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research
Volume37
Forfurthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/6362
Sebastian Krastel • Jan-Hinrich Behrmann
David Vo¨lker (cid:129) Michael Stipp (cid:129) Christian Berndt
Roger Urgeles (cid:129) Jason Chaytor (cid:129) Katrin Huhn
Michael Strasser (cid:129) Carl Bonnevie Harbitz
Editors
Submarine Mass Movements
and Their Consequences
6th International Symposium
123
Editors
SebastianKrastel Jan-HinrichBehrmann
InstituteofGeosciences DavidVo¨lker
Christian-Albrechts-Universita¨tzuKiel MichaelStipp
Kiel,Germany ChristianBerndt
GEOMARHelmholtzCentreforOcean
RogerUrgeles ResearchKiel
InstituteofMarineSciences(CSIC) Kiel,Germany
Barcelona,Spain
JasonChaytor
KatrinHuhn UnitedStatesGeologicalSurvey
MARUMCenterforMarine WoodsHole,MA,USA
EnvironmentalSciences
UniversityofBremen MichaelStrasser
Bremen,Germany ETHZurich
GeologicalInstitute
CarlBonnevieHarbitz Zurich,Switzerland
NorwegianGeotechnicalInstitute
Oslo,Norway
ISSN1878-9897 ISSN2213-6959(electronic)
ISBN978-3-319-00971-1 ISBN978-3-319-00972-8(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-00972-8
SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2013948753
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Preface
Themorphologyofcontinentalslopesandrisesaroundtheworldaswellasflanks
of oceanic islands are marked with major landslide scars. Many of these involve
thousands of square kilometers of sea floor, and their formation represents an
importantmechanismfor transferringsedimentarymaterialto the deepsea. Sand-
richgravityflow depositsformmanyofthe world’slargestoilandgasreservoirs,
while mud-rich deposits may sequester globally significant volumes of organic
carbon.Thegeohazardsassociatedwithsubmarineslopefailuresincludedestruction
of sub-sea infrastructuresuch as pipelinesandcables as well as tsunamisinduced
bylandslidesandtheireffectsonshore.Duetothesourcecharacteristics,tsunamis
induced by landslides cause more local effects than those caused by earthquakes.
The 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami that followed from a 5–10 km3 submarine
landslide and killed (cid:2)2,200 people along a 30 km coastal section illustrates the
hazard and risk resulting from such local events. Very large submarine landslides
with volumes of several thousands of cubic kilometers are rare, but may cause
tsunamiswithmorewidespreadeffects.Volcanicflankcollapsesonoceanicislands
mayalsocausetsunamisinducingdistantdestruction,althoughtheirtsunamigenic
potentialishighlydisputed.
The causes of submarine mass movements are manifold, but not yet well
understood. Surprisingly many of the larger landslides are associated with much
gentler slopes than required to destabilize the sea floor under static conditions.
Slopefailureisoftenattributedtosomecombinationofearthquaketriggering,rapid
sedimentation, the presence of weak layers, excess pore pressures, ice-induced
forces in glaciated areas, steeping from tectonic, diapiric or erosional activity, as
wellasvolcanodevelopment,butonlyforveryfewslopefailuresarobustscientific
casehasbeenmade.
Thecomplexnatureofsubmarinemassmovementsandtheirconsequencescalls
foramultidisciplinaryapproachincludingstate-of-the-artseafloorandsub-seafloor
mapping, investigations of physical properties (in situ and on cores), numerical
v
vi Preface
modelingof landslidesand associated tsunamis as well as hazardand risk assess-
ment.Inordertobring‘submarinelandslide’scientiststogetherandtominimizethe
consequencesofsubmarinefailures,theInternationalUnionofGeologicalScience
(IUGS) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) have sponsored two International Geoscience Programs on ‘Earth’s
ContinentalMargins:AssessingtheGeohazardfromsubmarineLandslides’(IGCP-
585) and its predecessor ‘Submarine Mass Movements and Their Consequences’
(IGCP-511).
A central activity of IGCP 585 is the organization of a bi-annual symposium
in order to present an up-to-date perspective of submarine mass movements and
theirconsequencesbyassemblingexcellentcontributionsfromactiveinternational
academic, government and industry researchers. The 6th symposium was held
in Kiel (Germany) in September 2013; this new volume of the book series on
‘SubmarineMassMovementsandtheirConsequences’presentsnewpeer-reviewed
contributions by international experts in the field. The book is organized in nine
parts covering geological, geophysical, engineering and environmentalaspects of
submarine slope failures. It contains (among others) investigations of physical
properties of landslide deposits, partly on samples collected during some of the
first attempts at scientific ocean drilling in thick sequences of mass transport
deposits,theanalysisoflong-termrecordsofsubmarinelandslidesandtheirusage
in paleoseismology,repeated surveysof active slope failures, as well as a chapter
onlandslidegeneratedtsunamis.Thefocusisonunderstandingthefullspectrumof
challengespresentedbythismajorcoastalandoffshoregeohazard.
Research on submarine mass movementsand their consequencesspans several
disciplines and several open questions need to be addressed in the future. It is
crucialtoidentifypotentialprecursorsofsubmarinelandslides.Theemergentfield
of submarine geodesy will hopefully provide us with the means of measuring
smallmovementsontheseafloor,whichmayoccurpriortoacatastrophicfailure.
The new science plan of the ‘International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP)’
identified geohazards as one of the key objectives. First results from dedicated
drillingcampaignsforunderstandingsubmarinelandslidesarecurrentlypublished
(e.g., offshore Japan, around the Lesser Antilles, the Gulf of Mexico). Future
systematic monitoringof in situ parametersin drillholesmay allow identification
of transient signals indicating imminent slope instability. Sophisticated hazard
assessmentfor tsunamiscaused bysubmarinelandslidesis anotherimportantstep
for mitigating their impacts. So far, most tsunami hazard assessments have been
scenario-basedandfocusedon earthquaketsunamis.More recentlya probabilistic
tsunamihazardassessmentapproachhasbeendeveloped,whichislargelyinspired
fromprobabilisticseismichazardinvestigations.However,insufficientagesampling
andchangingconditionsforlandslidetriggeringare majorobstaclesin translating
a probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment approach from earthquake to landslide
tsunamis. It is further expected that the landslide tsunami risk is dominated by
Preface vii
thelongreturnperiods,generallycarryingthelargestuncertainties.Hence,amore
robust scenario-based tsunami hazard assessment will probably still be the most
efficientonetouseforlandslidetsunamis.
Kiel,Germany SebastianKrastel
Kiel,Germany Jan-HinrichBehrmann
Kiel,Germany DavidVo¨lker
Kiel,Germany MichaelStipp
Kiel,Germany ChristianBerndt
Barcelona,Spain RogerUrgeles
WoodsHole,MA,USA JasonChaytor
Bremen,Germany KatrinHuhn
Zurich,Switzerland MichaelStrasser
Oslo,Norway CarlBonnevieHarbitz
Contents
PartI PhysicalPropertiesofSediments
1 Weak Layers: Their Definition and Classification
fromaGeotechnicalPerspective.......................................... 3
JacquesLocat,SergeLeroueil,ArianeLocat,andHomaLee
2 FieldMeasurementstoInvestigateSubmergedSlopeFailures........ 13
AlexandervanDuinen,AdamBezuijen,
GeeraltvandenHam,andVictorHopman
3 ElementalDistributionandMicrofabricCharacterization
Across a Buried Slump Scar: New Insights
on the Long-Term Development and Reactivation
ofScarSurfacesfromaMicroscopicPerspective....................... 23
HelenEriAmsler, EricReusser, KittyMilliken,
andMichaelStrasser
4 Evidence for Mass Transport Deposits at the IODP
JFAST-SiteintheJapanTrench .......................................... 33
HiskeG.Fink, MichaelStrasser, MiriamRo¨mer,
MartinKo¨lling, KenIkehara, ToshiyaKanamatsu,
DominikDinten, ArataKioka, ToshiyaFujiwara,
KiichiroKawamura, ShuichiKodaira, GeroldWefer,
andR/VSonneSO219ACruiseParticipants
5 PreliminaryInvestigationsof RheologicalProperties
ofBusanClaysandPossibleImplicationsforDebris
FlowModelling ............................................................. 45
SuengWonJeong, Sang-NamYoon, Sung-SikPark,
GilYoungKim, Seong-PilKim, Jang-JunBahk,
Nyeon-KeonKang,SangHoonLee,andSung-GyoChung
ix
