(18) Submarine landslides and tsunamis

Author

Kiichiro Kawamura

Yamaguchi University

kiichiro@yamamguchi-u.ac.jp

Abstract

Submarine landslides can generate tsunamis that may damage coastal and seabed infrastructure and so represent an important element of marine geohazards research due to their potentially significant impacts on society. Such landslides may occur on active margins, passive margins, or volcanic islands, and the primary trigger mechanism was thought to be earthquake activity; however, there are also a number of alternative hypotheses regarding the likely initiation mechanism. In this paper, we briefly describe the geological features and trigger mechanisms of tsunamigenic submarine landslides on active and passive margins. On convergent margins, large tsunamigenic submarine landslides appear to occur mostly on margins characterized by non-accretion. The trigger mechanism should be associated strongly with earthquakes.