Tsunamigenic Potential of the Baiyun Slide Complex in the South China Sea

The Baiyun slide complex contains geological evidence for some of the largest landslide ever discovered in the continental slopes of the South China Sea. High-resolution seismic data suggest that a variety of landslides with varied scales have occurred repeatedly in this area. The largest landslide reconstructed from bathymetric and seismic data has an estimated spatial coverage of ~5,500 km2 and a conservative volume of ~1,035 km3. Here, using geomorphological and geotechnical data, we construct a series of probable landslide scenarios and assess their tsunamigenic capacity. By treating the slides as deformable mudflows, we simulate the dynamics of landslide movements. The simulated landslide motions match the geophysical observations interpreted in previous studies. Particularly, we are able to reproduce the spatial distribution of observed runout, including the distance, shape, and deposit thickness, for the most credible slide scenario. We investigate tsunami impacts generated by different slide scenarios and highlight the importance of initial water depth, sliding direction, and nearshore bathymetry. The worst-case scenario is capable of producing basin-wide tsunami, with maximum wave amplitudes reaching ~5 m near Hong Kong and Macau, 1–3 m in western Philippines, and at least 1 m along central Vietnam, southeast Hainan, and southern Taiwan. The most noticeable phenomenon we observed is that the southern Chinese coast is the hardest-hit region in all the simulated scenarios regardless of the diverse slide features. We conclude that the persistence of high tsunami impact is caused by the unique bathymetric feature of the wide continental shelf in front of southern China

The Making of the NEAM Tsunami Hazard Model 2018 (NEAMTHM18)

The NEAM Tsunami Hazard Model 2018 (NEAMTHM18) is a probabilistic hazard model for tsunamis generated by earthquakes. It covers the coastlines of the North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and connected seas (NEAM). NEAMTHM18 was designed as a three-phase project. The first two phases were dedicated to the model development and hazard calculations, following a formalized decision-making process based on a multiple-expert protocol. The third phase was dedicated to documentation and dissemination. The hazard assessment workflow was structured in Steps and Levels. There are four Steps: Step-1) probabilistic earthquake model; Step-2) tsunami generation and modeling in deep water; Step-3) shoaling and inundation; Step-4) hazard aggregation and uncertainty quantification. Each Step includes a different number of Levels. Level-0 always describes the input data; the other Levels describe the intermediate results needed to proceed from one Step to another. Alternative datasets and models were considered in the implementation. The epistemic hazard uncertainty was quantified through an ensemble modeling technique accounting for alternative models’ weights and yielding a distribution of hazard curves represented by the mean and various percentiles. Hazard curves were calculated at 2,343 Points of Interest (POI) distributed at an average spacing of ∼20 km. Precalculated probability maps for five maximum inundation heights (MIH) and hazard intensity maps for five average return periods (ARP) were produced from hazard curves. In the entire NEAM Region, MIHs of several meters are rare but not impossible. Considering a 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years (ARP≈2,475 years), the POIs with MIH >5 m are fewer than 1% and are all in the Mediterranean on Libya, Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece coasts. In the North-East Atlantic, POIs with MIH >3 m are on the coasts of Mauritania and Gulf of Cadiz. Overall, 30% of the POIs have MIH >1 m. NEAMTHM18 results and documentation are available through the TSUMAPS-NEAM project website (http://www.tsumaps-neam.eu/), featuring an interactive web mapper. Although the NEAMTHM18 cannot substitute in-depth analyses at local scales, it represents the first action to start local and more detailed hazard and risk assessments and contributes to designing evacuation maps for tsunami early warning.publishedVersio

Comparing approaches for numerical modelling of tsunami generation by deformable submarine slides

Tsunami generated by submarine slides are arguably an under-considered risk in comparison to earthquake-generated tsunami. Numerical simulations of submarine slide-generated waves can be used to identify the important factors in determining wave characteristics. Here we use Fluidity, an open source finite element code, to simulate waves generated by deformable submarine slides. Fluidity uses flexible unstructured meshes combined with adaptivity which alters the mesh topology and resolution based on the simulation state, focussing or reducing resolution, when and where it is required. Fluidity also allows a number of different numerical approaches to be taken to simulate submarine slide deformation, free-surface representation, and wave generation within the same numerical framework. In this work we use a multi-material approach, considering either two materials (slide and water with a free surface) or three materials (slide, water and air), as well as a sediment model (sediment, water and free surface) approach. In all cases the slide is treated as a viscous fluid. Our results are shown to be consistent with laboratory experiments using a deformable submarine slide, and demonstrate good agreement when compared with other numerical models. The three different approaches for simulating submarine slide dynamics and tsunami wave generation produce similar waveforms and slide deformation geometries. However, each has its own merits depending on the application. Mesh adaptivity is shown to be able to reduce the computational cost without compromising the accuracy of results

A rockslide-generated tsunami in a Greenland fjord rang Earth for 9 days

Climate change is increasingly predisposing polar regions to large landslides. Tsunamigenic landslides have occurred recently in Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat), but none have been reported from the eastern fjords. In September 2023, we detected the start of a 9-day-long, global 10.88-millihertz (92-second) monochromatic very-long-period (VLP) seismic signal, originating from East Greenland. In this study, we demonstrate how this event started with a glacial thinning–induced rock-ice avalanche of 25 × 106 cubic meters plunging into Dickson Fjord, triggering a 200-meter-high tsunami. Simulations show that the tsunami stabilized into a 7-meter-high long-duration seiche with a frequency (11.45 millihertz) and slow amplitude decay that were nearly identical to the seismic signal. An oscillating, fjord-transverse single force with a maximum amplitude of 5 × 1011 newtons reproduced the seismic amplitudes and their radiation pattern relative to the fjord, demonstrating how a seiche directly caused the 9-day-long seismic signal. Our findings highlight how climate change is causing cascading, hazardous feedbacks between the cryosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere.acceptedVersio

A laboratory-numerical approach for modelling scale effects in dry granular slides

Granular slides are omnipresent in both natural and industrial contexts. Scale effects are changes in physical behaviour of a phenomenon at different geometric scales, such as between a laboratory experiment and a corresponding larger event observed in nature. These scale effects can be significant and can render models of small size inaccurate by underpredicting key characteristics such as ow velocity or runout distance. Although scale effects are highly relevant to granular slides due to the multiplicity of length and time scales in the flow, they are currently not well understood. A laboratory setup under Froude similarity has been developed, allowing dry granular slides to be investigated at a variety of scales, with a channel width configurable between 0.25-1.00 m. Maximum estimated grain Reynolds numbers, which quantify whether the drag force between a particle and the surrounding air act in a turbulent or viscous manner, are found in the range 102-103. A discrete element method (DEM) simulation has also been developed, validated against an axisymmetric column collapse and a granular slide experiment of Hutter and Koch (1995), before being used to model the present laboratory experiments and to examine a granular slide of significantly larger scale. This article discusses the details of this laboratory-numerical approach, with the main aim of examining scale effects related to the grain Reynolds number. Increasing dust formation with increasing scale may also exert influence on laboratory experiments. Overall, significant scale effects have been identified for characteristics such as ow velocity and runout distance in the physical experiments. While the numerical modelling shows good general agreement at the medium scale, it does not capture differences in behaviour seen at the smaller scale, highlighting the importance of physical models in capturing these scale effects

Tsunami generation and propagation from the Mjølnir asteroid impact

In the late Jurassic period, about 142 million years ago, an asteroid hit the shallow paleo-Barents Sea, north of present-day Norway. The geological structure resulting from the impact is today known as the Mjølnir crater. The present work attempts to model the generation and the propagation of the tsunami from the Mjølnir impact. A multi-material hydrocode SOVA is used to model the impact and the early stages of tsunami generation, while models based on shallow-water theories are used to study the subsequent wave propagation in the paleo-Barents Sea. We apply several wave models of varying computational complexity. This includes both three-dimensional and radially symmetric weakly dispersive and nonlinear Boussinesq equations, as well as equations based on nonlinear ray theory. These tsunami models require a reconstruction of the bathymetry of the paleo- Barents Sea. The Mjølnir tsunami is characteristic of large bolides impacting in shallow sea; in this case the asteroid was about 1.6 km in diameter and the water depth was around 400 m. Contrary to earthquake- and slide-generated tsunamis, this tsunami featured crucial dispersive and nonlinear effects: a few minutes after the impact, the ocean surface was formed into an undular bore, which developed further into a train of solitary waves. Our simulations indicate wave amplitudes above 200 m, and during shoaling the waves break far from the coastlines in rather deep water. The tsunami induced strong bottom currents, in the range of 30-90 km/h, which presumably caused a strong reworking of bottom sediments with dramatic consequences for the marine environment.The Meteoritics & Planetary Science archives are made available by the Meteoritical Society and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] for further information.Migrated from OJS platform February 202