The Storegga Slide complex: repetitive large scale sliding with similar cause and development

Solheim, Anders; Berg, K.; Forsberg, Carl Fredrik; Bryn, Petter

doi:10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2004.10.013

Cited by 191 publications

(114 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The slide excavated on average the top 250 m of sediment over a swath hundreds of kilometers wide, stretching half-way from Norway to Greenland. There have been comparable slides on the Norwegian margin every approximately 100 kyr, roughly synchronous with the glacial cycles (Solheim et al, 2005). The last one, Storegga proper, occurred about 8150 years ago, after deglaciation.…”

Section: Observationsmentioning

confidence: 86%

Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change

2007

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Abstract. Methane frozen into hydrate makes up a large reservoir of potentially volatile carbon below the sea floor and associated with permafrost soils. This reservoir intuitively seems precarious, because hydrate ice floats in water, and melts at Earth surface conditions. The hydrate reservoir is so large that if 10% of the methane were released to the atmosphere within a few years, it would have an impact on the Earth's radiation budget equivalent to a factor of 10 increase in atmospheric CO 2 .Hydrates are releasing methane to the atmosphere today in response to anthropogenic warming, for example along the Arctic coastline of Siberia. However most of the hydrates are located at depths in soils and ocean sediments where anthropogenic warming and any possible methane release will take place over time scales of millennia. Individual catastrophic releases like landslides and pockmark explosions are too small to reach a sizable fraction of the hydrates. The carbon isotopic excursion at the end of the Paleocene has been interpreted as the release of thousands of Gton C, possibly from hydrates, but the time scale of the release appears to have been thousands of years, chronic rather than catastrophic.The potential climate impact in the coming century from hydrate methane release is speculative but could be comparable to climate feedbacks from the terrestrial biosphere and from peat, significant but not catastrophic. On geologic timescales, it is conceivable that hydrates could release as much carbon to the atmosphere/ocean system as we do by fossil fuel combustion.

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Section: Observationsmentioning

confidence: 86%

Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change

2007

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“…During interglacial periods, the northward directed Norwegian Atlantic Current caused contourite build-ups within former slope failure areas, i.e. palaeo slide scars Hjelstuen et al 2005;Solheim et al 2005). The contourite bodies may be particularly sensitive to rapid sediment loading as documented by the chimneys and pockmarks above them (Hustoft et al 2009b).…”

Section: Tectonic and Geological Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fact that the gas hydrate outcrop zones of the largest gas hydrate provinces in Europe are on the Norwegian-Barents-Svalbard (NBS) margins makes the U.S. Atlantic margin-Norwegian Atlantic margins response of gas hydrate fields to post-glacial climate conditions particularly important for studies of submarine slope failures, gas blowouts or geohazards in general (e.g. Driscoll et al 2000;Locat and Mienert 2003;Canals et al 2004;Mienert et al 2005;Solheim et al 2005;Mienert 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Norwegian margin outer shelf cracking: a consequence of climate-induced gas hydrate dissociation?

Mienert

Vanneste

Haflidason

et al. 2010

Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch)

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A series of en echelon cracks run nearly parallel to the outer shelf edge of the mid-Norwegian margin. The features can be followed in a *60-km-long and *5-km-wide zone in which up to 10-m-deep cracks developed in the seabed at 400-550 m water depth. The time of the seabed cracking has been dated to 7350 14 C years BP (8180 cal years BP), which corresponds with the main Storegga Slide event (8100 ± 250 cal. years BP). Reflection seismic data suggest that the cracks do not appear to result from deep-seated faults, but it cannot be ruled out completely that tension crevices were created in relation to past movements on the headwall of the Storegga slide. The cracking zone corresponds well to the zone where the base of the hydrate stability zone (BHSZ) outcrops. Evidence of fluid release in the BHSZ outcrop zone comes from an extensive pockmark field. We suggest that post-glacial ocean warming triggered the dissociation of gas hydrates while the interplay between dissociation, overpressure, and sediment fracturing on the outer shelf remains to be understood.

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“…Thus, it seems that slide processes have played a less significant role in the study area than along other glaciated margin segments, as for instance the Norway-Barents Sea margin (e.g. Evans et al 2005;Solheim et al 2005;Hjelstuen et al 2007). Periodic inflow of the West Spitsbergen Current caused contourites to form on the lower continental slope off Svalbard in the time period between 1.7 and 1.5 Ma.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Cenozoic western Svalbard margin: sediment geometry and sedimentary processes in an area of ultraslow oceanic spreading

et al. 2011

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The northeastern high-latitude North Atlantic is characterised by the Bellsund and Isfjorden fans on the continental slope off west Svalbard, the asymmetrical ultraslow Knipovich spreading ridge and a 1,000 m deep rift valley. Recently collected multichannel seismic profiles and bathymetric records now provide a more complete picture of sedimentary processes and depositional environments within this region. Both downslope and alongslope sedimentary processes are identified in the study area. Turbidity currents and deposition of glacigenic debris flows are the dominating downslope processes, whereas mass failures, which are a common process on glaciated margins, appear to have been less significant. The slide debrite observed on the Bellsund Fan is most likely related to a 2.5-1.7 Ma old failure on the northwestern Barents Sea margin. The seismic records further reveal that alongslope current processes played a major role in shaping the sediment packages in the study area. Within the Knipovich rift valley and at the western rift flank accumulations as thick as 950-1,000 m are deposited. We note that oceanic basement is locally exposed within the rift valley, and that seismostratigraphic relationships indicate that fault activity along the eastern rift flank lasted until at least as recently as 1.5 Ma. A purely hemipelagic origin of the sediments in the rift valley and on the western rift flank is unlikely. We suggest that these sediments, partly, have been sourced from the western Svalbard-northwestern Barents Sea margin and into the Knipovich Ridge rift valley before continuous spreading and tectonic activity caused the sediments to be transported out of the valley and westward.

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The Storegga Slide complex: repetitive large scale sliding with similar cause and development

Cited by 191 publications

References 19 publications

Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change

Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change

Norwegian margin outer shelf cracking: a consequence of climate-induced gas hydrate dissociation?

The Cenozoic western Svalbard margin: sediment geometry and sedimentary processes in an area of ultraslow oceanic spreading

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