Finn Løvholt

Submarine landslides: processes, triggers and hazard prediction

Huge landslides, mobilizing hundreds to thousands of km3 of sediment and rock are ubiquitous in submarine settings ranging from the steepest volcanic island slopes to the gentlest muddy slopes of submarine deltas. Here, we summarize current knowledge of such landslides and the problems of assessing their hazard potential. The major hazards related to submarine landslides include destruction of seabed infrastructure, collapse of coastal areas into the sea and landslide-generated tsunamis. Most submarine slopes are inherently stable. Elevated pore pressures (leading to decreased frictional resistance to sliding) and specific weak layers within stratified sequences appear to be the key factors influencing landslide occurrence. Elevated pore pressures can result from normal depositional processes or from transient processes such as earthquake shaking; historical evidence suggests that the majority of large submarine landslides are triggered by earthquakes. Because of their tsunamigenic potential, ocean-island flank collapses and rockslides in fjords have been identified as the most dangerous of all landslide related hazards. Published models of ocean-island landslides mainly examine ‘worst-case scenarios’ that have a low probability of occurrence. Areas prone to submarine landsliding are relatively easy to identify, but we are still some way from being able to forecast individual events with precision. Monitoring of critical areas where landslides might be imminent and modelling landslide consequences so that appropriate mitigation strategies can be developed would appear to be areas where advances on current practice are possible.

Submarine landslide tsunamis: how extreme and how likely?

A number of examples are presented to substantiate that submarine landslides have occurred along most continental margins and along several volcano flanks. Their properties of importance for tsunami generation (i.e. physical dimensions, acceleration, maximum velocity, mass discharge, and travel distance) can all gain extreme values compared to their subaerial counterparts. Hence, landslide tsunamis may also be extreme and have regional impact. Landslide tsunami characteristics are discussed explaining how they may exceed tsunamis induced by megathrust earthquakes, hence representing a significant risk even though they occur more infrequently. In fact, submarine landslides may cause potentially extreme tsunami run-up heights, which may have consequences for the design of critical infrastructure often based on unjustifiably long return periods. Giant submarine landslides are rare and related to climate changes or glacial cycles, indicating that giant submarine landslide tsunami hazard is in most regions negligible compared to earthquake tsunami hazard. Large-scale debris flows surrounding active volcanoes or submarine landslides in river deltas may be more frequent. Giant volcano flank collapses at the Canary and Hawaii Islands developed in the early stages of the history of the volcanoes, and the tsunamigenic potential of these collapses is disputed. Estimations of recurrence intervals, hazard, and uncertainties with today’s methods are discussed. It is concluded that insufficient sampling and changing conditions for landslide release are major obstacles in transporting a Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment (PTHA) approach from earthquake to landslide tsunamis and that the more robust Scenario-Based Tsunami Hazard Assessment (SBTHA) approach will still be most efficient to use. Finally, the needs for data acquisition and analyses, laboratory experiments, and more sophisticated numerical modelling for improved understanding and hazard assessment of landslide tsunamis are elaborated.

On the characteristics of landslide tsunamis

This review presents modelling techniques and processes that govern landslide tsunami generation, with emphasis on tsunamis induced by fully submerged landslides. The analysis focuses on a set of representative examples in simplified geometries demonstrating the main kinematic landslide parameters influencing initial tsunami amplitudes and wavelengths. Scaling relations from laboratory experiments for subaerial landslide tsunamis are also briefly reviewed. It is found that the landslide acceleration determines the initial tsunami elevation for translational landslides, while the landslide velocity is more important for impulsive events such as rapid slumps and subaerial landslides. Retrogressive effects stretch the tsunami, and in certain cases produce enlarged amplitudes due to positive interference. In an example involving a deformable landslide, it is found that the landslide deformation has only a weak influence on tsunamigenesis. However, more research is needed to determine how landslide flow processes that involve strong deformation and long run-out determine tsunami generation.

Coupling of Dispersive Tsunami Propagation and Shallow Water Coastal Response

The key issue of this article is the concept of combining a model dedicated to dispersive large scale propagation of tsunamis with ComMIT, developed and made freely available by NOAA, that is a state of the art tool for tsunami impact studies. First, the main motivation for this approach, namely the need for efficient computation of runup of tsunamis from submarine/subaerial slides and certain types of earthquake, is discussed. Then the models involved are presented. We describe in some detail the dispersive model component which is a Boussinesq type model that is recently developed for tsunami propagation purposes. Finally, the performance and flexibility of the joint model approach is illustrated by two case studies including inundation computations at selected cites. The potentially disastrous, but small probability, flank-collapse event at the La Palma Island is used as an example of slide generated tsunamis where dispersion plays an important role. The second example is a tsunami from a potential inverse thrust fault at the Lesser Antilles. In this case dispersion during propagation is important for some regions, but not for others.

Dynamics, Velocity and Run-Out of the Giant Storegga Slide

A huge slide (volume of 2400 km3 and run-out 450 km) was released in the Storegga area off the western coast of Norway during early Holocene, followed by numerous smaller debris flows. We perform numerical simulations of the giant slide using a Bingham model for the clay material. Agreement with present deposit distribution and run-out is found by assuming that the shear resistance between the debris flow and the seabed decreases during the flow, and we suggest sediment remolding or hydroplaning as possible explanations. Debris velocities are predicted and possible applications to the associated tsunami event are investigated.

Some giant submarine landslides do not produce large tsunamis

Landslides are the second-most important cause of tsunamis after earthquakes, and their potential for generating large tsunamis depend on the slide process. Among the worlds largest submarine landslides is the Storegga Slide that generated an ocean-wide catastrophic tsunami, while no traces of a tsunami generated from the similar and nearby Traenadjupet Slide have been found. Previous models for such landslide tsunamis have not been able to capture the complexity of the landslide processes, and are at odds with geotechnical and geomorphological data that reveal retrogressive landslide development. The tsunami generation from these massive events are here modeled with new methods that incorporate complex retrogressive slide motion. We show that the tsunamigenic strength is closely related to the retrogressive development, and explain for the first time, why similar giant landslides can produce very different tsunamis, sometimes smaller than anticipated. Because these slide mechanisms are common for submarine landslides, modeling procedures for dealing with their associated tsunamis should be revised.

A global probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment from earthquake sources

Abstract Large tsunamis occur infrequently but have the capacity to cause enormous numbers of casualties, damage to the built environment and critical infrastructure, and economic losses. A sound understanding of tsunami hazard is required to underpin management of these risks, and while tsunami hazard assessments are typically conducted at regional or local scales, globally consistent assessments are required to support international disaster risk reduction efforts, and can serve as a reference for local and regional studies. This study presents a global-scale probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment (PTHA), extending previous global-scale assessments based largely on scenario analysis. Only earthquake sources are considered, as they represent about 80% of the recorded damaging tsunami events. Globally extensive estimates of tsunami run-up height are derived at various exceedance rates, and the associated uncertainties are quantified. Epistemic uncertainties in the exceedance rates of large earthquakes often lead to large uncertainties in tsunami run-up. Deviations between modelled tsunami run-up and event observations are quantified, and found to be larger than suggested in previous studies. Accounting for these deviations in PTHA is important, as it leads to a pronounced increase in predicted tsunami run-up for a given exceedance rate.

Tsunami-Genesis Due to Retrogressive Landslides on an Inclined Seabed

Clay-rich landslides commonly involve retrogressive mass and momentum release mechanisms. Motivated by the retrogressive behaviour of major landslides offshore Norway, previous studies have demonstrated substantial effects of the release rate on the generation of the tsunami. However, the few existing models are limited to overly idealized conditions. In the present study, we explore further the wave generation due to a continuous retrogressive landslide model, quantifying the effects of the wave model, landslide configuration, and the continental slope. In the present examples, we find that the landslides involve large accelerations that may be crucial for tsunami-genesis. Tsunami footprints due to individual short blocks comprising the landslide are smeared out by dispersion. Keeping landslide material properties constant, we investigate mobilised landslide mass and maximum tsunami crest elevations for three different slopes: 1°, 1.5°, and 2° respectively. In the present examples, the smaller volume landslides are stronger tsunami generators than the larger ones because they are situated in shallower water, thereby clearly demonstrating the importance of the water depth on the tsunami generation.

Submarine Landslides and Their Consequences: What Do We Know, What Can We Do?

The threats posed by submarine landslides to human civilization are the disappearance of valuable land near the shoreline, the destruction of seafloor installations like cables, pipelines or oil wells, and – most importantly – the devastation of coastal areas by landslide-generated tsunamis. Assessing and mitigating these hazards almost invariably implies the estimation of risk in situations where the probabilities associated with different scenarios are difficult to quantify. However, substantial progress has been made in the understanding of the geological processes and physical mechanisms operating at different stages of a submarine landslide event. This paper briefly reviews the state-of-the-art and points out why knowledge and methods from several disciplines of the physical sciences need to be combined to find solutions to the geotechnical engineering challenges from submarine landslides. A number of references to relevant case studies are also provided.

The 2014 Lake Askja rockslide‐induced tsunami: Optimization of numerical tsunami model using observed data

A large rockslide was released from the inner Askja caldera into Lake Askja, Iceland, on 21 July 2014. Upon entering the lake, it caused a large tsunami that traveled about ∼3 km across the lake and inundated the shore with vertical runup measuring up to 60–80 m. Following the event, comprehensive field data were collected, including GPS measurements of the inundation and multibeam echo soundings of the lake bathymetry. Using this exhaustive data set, numerical modeling of the tsunami has been conducted using both a nonlinear shallow water model and a Boussinesq-type model that includes frequency dispersion. To constrain unknown landslide parameters, a global optimization algorithm, Differential Evolution, was employed, resulting in a parameter set that minimized the deviation from measured inundation. The tsunami model of Lake Askja is the first example where we have been able to utilize field data to show that frequency dispersion is needed to explain the tsunami wave radiation pattern and that shallow water theory falls short. We were able to fit the trend in tsunami runup observations around the entire lake using the Boussinesq model. In contrast, the shallow water model gave a different runup pattern and produced pronounced offsets in certain areas. The well-documented Lake Askja tsunami thus provided a unique opportunity to explore and capture the essential physics of landslide tsunami generation and propagation through numerical modeling. Moreover, the study of the event is important because this dispersive nature is likely to occur for other subaerial impact tsunamis.