Submarine Landslides and Their Tsunami Hazard

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Tappin
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Submarine Landslide ◽  
Tsunami Hazard ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Submarine Landslides ◽  
Critical Importance ◽  
Grand Banks ◽  
Landslide Mechanisms ◽  
Landslide Tsunamis

Most tsunamis are generated by earthquakes, but in 1998, a seabed slump offshore of northern Papua New Guinea (PNG) generated a tsunami up to 15 m high that killed more than 2,200 people. The event changed our understanding of tsunami mechanisms and was forerunner to two decades of major tsunamis that included those in Turkey, the Indian Ocean, Japan, and Sulawesi and Anak Krakatau in Indonesia. PNG provided a context to better understand these tsunamis as well as older submarine landslide events, such as Storegga (8150 BP); Alika 2 in Hawaii (120,000 BP), and Grand Banks, Canada (1929), together with those from dual earthquake/landslide mechanisms, such as Messina (1908), Puerto Rico (1928), and Japan (2011). PNG proved that submarine landslides generate devastating tsunamis from failure mechanisms that can be very different, whether singly or in combination with earthquakes. It demonstrated the critical importance of seabed mapping to identify these mechanisms as well as stimulated the development of new numerical tsunami modeling methodologies. In combination with other recent tsunamis, PNG demonstrated the critical importance of these events in advancing our understanding of tsunami hazard and risk. This review recounts how, since 1998, understanding of the tsunami hazard from submarine landslides has progressed far beyond anything considered possible at that time. ▪ For submarine landslide tsunamis, advances in understanding take place incrementally, usually in response to major, sometimes catastrophic, events. ▪ The Papua New Guinea tsunami in 1998, when more than 2,200 people perished, was a turning point in first recognizing the significant tsunami hazard from submarine landslides. ▪ Over the past 2 to 3 years advances have also been made mainly because of improvements in numerical modeling based on older tsunamis such as Grand Banks in 1929, Messina in 1908, and Storegga at 8150 BP. ▪ Two recent tsunamis in late 2018, in Sulawesi and Anak Krakatau, Indonesia, where several hundred people died, were from very unusual landslide mechanisms—dual (strike-slip and landslide) and volcanic collapse—and provide new motivations for understanding these tsunami mechanisms. ▪ This is a timely, state of the art review of landslide tsunamis based on recent well-studied events and new research on older ones, which provide an important context for the recent tsunamis in Indonesia in 2018. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Volume 49 is May 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals Submarine landslide deposits of the historical lateral collapse of Ritter Island, Papua New Guinea

2015 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 419-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Day ◽  
Pilar Llanes ◽  
Eli Silver ◽  
Gary Hoffmann ◽  
Steve Ward ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Submarine Landslide

scholarly journals Western media ‘elite’models challenged by PNG research

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-213
Author(s):  
Patrick Craddock
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Communication Culture ◽  
New Britain ◽  
Information Gaps

Reviewed book edited by Evangelia Papoutsaki, Michael McManus and Patrick Matbob Publication date: October, 2011 More than 20 authors have been included in Communication, Culture and Society in Papua New Guinea: Yu Tok Wanem? This should surely be the book of the month on media in the Pacific. The editors have divided the book into four themes focusing on: mainstream media issues; social issues; information gaps and development issues, and the search for solutions. A glance at the mini-profiles of the authors show that many come from a range of PNG backgrounds, including the Highlands, Bougainville, New Ireland, Manus and East New Britain. Also represented in the book are well-known media academics from New Zealand and Australia.

scholarly journals Tsunami Hazard Evaluation for the Head of the Gulf of Elat–Aqaba, Northeastern Red Sea

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amos Salamon ◽  
Eran Frucht ◽  
Steven N. Ward ◽  
Erez Gal ◽  
Marina Grigorovitch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Red Sea ◽  
Submarine Landslide ◽  
Tsunami Hazard ◽  
Hazard Evaluation ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Submarine Landslides ◽  
Case Scenario ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Ground Shaking ◽  
Landslide Tsunami

Unique geological and seismotectonic settings may trigger a multicascading hazard and should be identified beforehand. Such is the head of the Gulf of Elat–Aqaba (HGEA) at the northeastern end of the Red Sea where its geology, tectonics, bathymetry, and earthquake and tsunami history exhibit clear potential for earthquake and submarine-landslide tsunami generation. We thus investigated the possible tsunamigenic sources in the gulf and evaluated the resulting hazard at the HGEA. First, we assembled a bathymetric grid and adopted GeoClaw software to simulate most of the earthquake-tsunami scenarios. Next, we resolved the scheme of the largest possible tsunamigenic earthquakes along the deep basins of the Gulf of Elat (GEA) and the associated Dead Sea rift valley, as well as the potential tsunamigenic submarine landslides in the HGEA. The use of GeoClaw was verified against the 1995 tsunami generated by the Nuweiba Mw 7.2 earthquake, and then operated to simulate a suite of earthquake scenarios. Results showed that the marginal faults of Elat Basin pose the highest tsunami hazard to the Israeli part of the HGEA. To better assess that hazard, we screened the geology and seismotectonics of the HGEA and found that the Elat normal fault presents the worst-case scenario for Elat city. It is capable of generating a multicascading threat of earthquake and submarine-landslide tsunami, local subsidence that can increase inundation, and above all, destructive ground motion. Scenarios of a tsunami caused by the worst-case earthquake on the Elat fault simulated by GeoClaw and Ward’s (Tsunami, The encyclopedia of solid earth geophysics. 2011, 1473–1493) approach, and submarine landslide in the HGEA simulated by Wang et al.’s (Geophys. J. Int., 2015, 201, 1534–1544) ‘Tsunami Squares’ approach, demonstrated waves as high as 4 m along these coasts. Accordingly, we constructed a map of the evacuation zone. We also show that strong ground-shaking and retreat of the sea at the HGEA should be considered a tsunami warning, although false alarms are inevitable. Furthermore, tsunami hazard exists all along the gulf and further assessments are needed to quantify this hazard and increase awareness among the area's population.

scholarly journals NUMERICAL MODELING OF TSUNAMI GENERATED BY SUBMARINE AND SUBAERIAL LANDSLIDES

2018 ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Arturo Jimenez ◽  
Oleg Mouraenko ◽  
Cheng-Feng Tsai
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Modeling ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Numerical Models ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Tsunami Hazard ◽  
Hazard Mapping ◽  
Coastal Modeling ◽  
Modeling Software

Tsunami triggered by landslides have proven to be greatly destructive to the coast (e.g. 1998 Papua New Guinea) and, in many coastal areas, to be crucial in the design of infrastructure and tsunami hazard mapping. Numerical models are the most widely used tool to study this type of tsunami. Some commercial coastal modeling software have added the ability to incorporate time- and spatial-varying ground elevations to model landslides. However, the evolution of the landslide must still be predefined in a way that is consistent with the physics of landslide motion.

scholarly journals Are submarine landslides an underestimated hazard on the western North Atlantic passive margin?

Geology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (9) ◽  
pp. 848-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Normandeau ◽  
D. Calvin Campbell ◽  
David J.W. Piper ◽  
Kimberley A. Jenner
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Submarine Landslide ◽  
Passive Margin ◽  
Submarine Landslides ◽  
Eastern Canada ◽  
Grand Banks ◽  
Landslide Event ◽  
Slope Instabilities

AbstractThe western North Atlantic passive margin is considered relatively stable, with few slope instabilities recognized during the Holocene. However, new multibeam bathymetry mapping and sediment core acquisition off eastern Canada indicate that previously unidentified, large, submarine landslide events occurred during the Late Holocene, between 4 and 1.5 ka. The recognition of these new gravitational events, in addition to the well-known C.E. 1929 Grand Banks earthquake-induced landslide, indicates that approximately one large landslide event per 1000 years has occurred offshore eastern Canada within the past 4000 years, a much shorter recurrence interval than hitherto reported. This Late Holocene recurrence rate is also similar to active margins around the world and is likely due to the under-consolidation and resultant instability of Scotian Slope sediments attributable to high glacial sedimentation rates. The discovery of these new Late Holocene landslides was made possible through detailed examination of cores recovered from the lower slope. These results demonstrate that submarine landslide hazard has been underestimated on the western North Atlantic margin—home to significant submarine infrastructure and proximal to a large coastal population.

scholarly journals Detectability of seismic waves from the submarine landslide that caused the 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akio Katsumata ◽  
Yasuhiro Yoshida ◽  
Kenji Nakata ◽  
Kenichi Fujita ◽  
Masayuki Tanaka ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Seismic Waves ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Submarine Landslide ◽  
Coda Waves ◽  
Tsunami Source ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Northern Coast ◽  
Bathymetric Data ◽  
Landslide Event

Abstract. On 17 July 1998, a tsunami caused serious damage on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea about 20 min after the mainshock of an Mw 7.0 earthquake. The tsunami has been attributed to a submarine landslide that occurred about 13 min after the mainshock because its arrival at the coast was too late and its height too great to be the direct result of the fault slip of the earthquake. Bathymetric data recorded after the tsunami revealed an amphitheater-like structure that was consistent with a recent submarine landslide. Most current tsunami warning systems are based on analysis of the early arrivals of seismic waves generated by an earthquake. In this study we investigated whether evidence of the landslide could be identified in the coda waves recorded after the mainshock. Based on previous studies of the tsunami source, we constructed synthetic seismograms to represent the submarine landslide and compared them to the observed coda waves of the preceding earthquake, with particular attention to the period around 13 min after the mainshock. We found phases possibly corresponding to the landslide event. However, they were easily covered with coda waves from the mainshock. We concluded that the 1998 landslide was too small to be evident in the coda waves following the magnitude 7 earthquake.

scholarly journals Tsunami scenario triggered by submarine landslide offshore of northern Sumatra Island and its hazard assessment

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haekal Azief Haridhi ◽  
Bor-Shouh Huang ◽  
Kuo-Liang Wen ◽  
Arif Mirza ◽  
Syamsul Rizal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fault Zone ◽  
Hazard Assessment ◽  
Early Warning Systems ◽  
Strike Slip ◽  
Submarine Landslide ◽  
Tsunami Hazard ◽  
Fault System ◽  
Submarine Landslides ◽  
Northern Border ◽  
Sumatran Fault

Abstract. Near the northern border of Sumatra, the right-lateral strike-slip Sumatran Fault Zone splits into two branches and extends into the offshore, as revealed by seismic sounding surveys. However, due to its strike-slip faulting characteristics, the Sumatran Fault Zone’s activity is rarely believed to cause tsunami hazards in this region. According to two reprocessed reflection seismic profiles, the extended Sumatran Fault Zone is strongly associated with chaotic facies, indicating that large submarine landslides have been triggered. Coastal steep slopes and new subsurface characteristics of submarine landslide deposits were mapped using recently acquired high-resolution shallow bathymetry data. Slope stability analysis revealed some targets with steep morphology to be close to failure. In an extreme case, an earthquake of Mw 7 or more occurred, and the strong ground shaking triggered a submarine landslide off the northern shore of Sumatra. Based on a simulation of tsunami wave propagation in shallow water, the results of this study indicate a potential tsunami hazard from a submarine landslide triggered by the strike-slip fault system. The landslide tsunami hazard assessment and early warning systems in this study area can be improved on the basis of this proposed scenario.

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