Tsunamigenic Landslides In The Western Corinth Gulf: Numerical Scenarios

Tinti, Stefano; Zaniboni, Filippo; Armigliato, Alberto; Pagnoni, Gianluca; Gallazzi, Sara Carolina; Manucci, Anna; Reyes, Beatriz Brizuela; Bressan, Lidia; Tonini, Roberto

doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6512-5_42

Cited by 12 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…(Lykousis et al, 2007). These landslides trigger tsunamis (Galanopoulos et al, 1964;Stefatos et al, 2006;Tinti et al, 2007) and induce coastal erosion by upslope retrogression (Papatheodorou and Ferentinos, 1997;Hasiotis et al, 2006). Tsunamis reaching an intensity ≥ 4 consequently represent a significant hazard in the western Gulf of Corinth (Beckers et al, 2017) and are documented for the last two millennia from historical sources and on-land geological studies (De Martini et al, 2007;Kontopoulos and Avamidis, 2003;Kortekaas et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics and frequency of large submarine landslides at the western tip of the Gulf of Corinth

Beckers

Hubert‐Ferrari

Beck

et al. 2018

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Coastal and submarine landslides are frequent at the western tip of the Gulf of Corinth, where small to medium failure events (106–107 m3) occur on average every 30–50 years. These landslides trigger tsunamis and consequently represent a significant hazard. We use here a dense grid of high-resolution seismic profiles to realize an inventory of the large mass transport deposits (MTDs) that result from these submarine landslides. Six large mass wasting events are identified, and their associated deposits locally represent 30 % of the sedimentation since 130 ka in the main western basin. In the case of a large MTD of ∼ 1 km3 volume, the simultaneous occurrence of different slope failures is inferred and suggests an earthquake triggering. However, the overall temporal distribution of MTDs would result from the time-dependent evolution of pre-conditioning factors rather than from the recurrence of external triggers. Two likely main pre-conditioning factors are (1) the reloading time of slopes, which varied with the sedimentation rate, and (2) dramatic changes in water depth and water circulation that occurred 10–12 ka ago during the last post-glacial transgression. Such sliding events likely generated large tsunami waves in the whole Gulf of Corinth, possibly larger than those reported in historical sources considering the observed volume of the MTDs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics and frequency of large submarine landslides at the western tip of the Gulf of Corinth

Beckers

Hubert‐Ferrari

Beck

et al. 2018

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…1a). The delta fronts are highly unstable (Ferentinos et al, 1988;Lykousis et al, 2009), which favors frequent submarine landsliding Tinti et al, 2007;Fig. 1b).…”

Section: Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Beckers et al: Characteristics and frequency of large submarine landslides . These landslides trigger tsunamis (Galanopoulos et al, 1964;Stefatos et al, 2006;Tinti et al, 2007) and induce coastal erosion by upslope retrogression (Papatheodorou and Ferentinos, 1997;Hasiotis et al, 2006). Tsunamis reaching an intensity ≥ 4 consequently represent a significant hazard in the western Gulf of Corinth (Beckers et al, 2017) and are documented for the last two millennia from historical sources and on-land geological studies (De Martini et al, 2007;Kontopoulos and Avamidis, 2003;Kortekaas et al, 2011).…”

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confidence: 99%

Answer to referee 1

Hubert‐Ferrari¹

2018

Preprint

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Coastal and submarine landslides are frequent at the western tip of the Gulf of Corinth, where small to medium failure events (10 6 -10 7 m 3 ) occur on average every 30-50 years. These landslides trigger tsunamis and consequently represent a significant hazard. We use here a dense grid of high-resolution seismic profiles to realize an inventory of the large mass transport deposits (MTDs) that result from these submarine landslides. Six large mass wasting events are identified, and their associated deposits locally represent 30 % of the sedimentation since 130 ka in the main western basin. In the case of a large MTD of ∼ 1 km 3 volume, the simultaneous occurrence of different slope failures is inferred and suggests an earthquake triggering. However, the overall temporal distribution of MTDs would result from the time-dependent evolution of pre-conditioning factors rather than from the recurrence of external triggers. Two likely main pre-conditioning factors are (1) the reloading time of slopes, which varied with the sedimentation rate, and (2) dramatic changes in water depth and water circulation that occurred 10-12 ka ago during the last post-glacial transgression. Such sliding events likely generated large tsunami waves in the whole Gulf of Corinth, possibly larger than those reported in historical sources considering the observed volume of the MTDs.

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“…Landslides often are the triggers of tsunamis in the Gulf of Corinth (Galanopoulos et al, 1964;Stefatos et al, 2006;Tinti et al, 2007). Just like for earthquakes, past tsunamis are known for the last two millennia in the western Gulf of Corinth from historical sources, but only for a few cities and there are certainly gaps in the tsunami record.…”

Section: Physical Setting and Previous Work In Paleoseismologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sedimentary impacts of recent moderate earthquakes from the shelves to the basin floor in the western Gulf of Corinth

et al. 2017

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a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f oIn seismically active areas, long term records of large earthquakes are indispensable to constrain reccurence patterns of large earthquakes. In the western Corinth Rift, one of the most active areas in Europe in terms of seismicity, data about ancient earthquakes are still insufficient, despite historical records covering the last two millenia and several studies in onshore paleoseimology. In this paper, we test the use of offshore sediments from the Gulf of Corinth to identify sediment failures and tsunamis that have been triggered by historical earthquakes. Two shelves (40-100 m deep), one sub-basin (180 m) and the basin floor (330 m) have been sampled by short gravity cores. The cores were analyzed in order to identify and characterize event deposits. The age control has been provided by 137 Cs and 210 Pb activity measurements showing that the cores represent 2 to 4 centuries of sedimentation. In each site, sandy event deposits are interbeded in the muddy, hemipelagic sedimentation. The age of event deposits has been compared to the record of historical earthquakes using new and published macroseismic data. This comparison shows temporal coincidence of some event deposits and documented earthquakes with a macroseismic intensity ≥ VII in the area, e.g. in 1861 CE, 1888 CE and 1909 CE. In nearshore, shallow-water settings, the record of event deposits does not exactly fit with the historical record of large earthquakes because too few event deposits are present. This may be due to the absence of sediment failures or to a lower preservation of the deposits in such settings. In the deepest site, in the basin floor, the correspondence is better: a sandy turbidite probably corresponds to each large earthquake since 1850 CE, except one aseismic sediment density flow that occurred at the end of the 20th century. Surprisingly, the Ms = 6.2, June 15, 1995 Aigion earthquake is only possibly recorded in one nearshore site on the Aigion Shelf, in the form of a tsunami back-wash flow deposit. This study showed that moderate earthquakes (M 5.8-6.5) can significantly impact marine sediments. Regarding the evaluation of seismic hazard in the area, the basin floor is proposed as a promising site for long term paleoseismology in the Gulf of Corinth, while shallower settings need to be considered more carefully.

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Tsunamigenic Landslides In The Western Corinth Gulf: Numerical Scenarios

Cited by 12 publications

References 12 publications

Characteristics and frequency of large submarine landslides at the western tip of the Gulf of Corinth

Characteristics and frequency of large submarine landslides at the western tip of the Gulf of Corinth

Answer to referee 1

Sedimentary impacts of recent moderate earthquakes from the shelves to the basin floor in the western Gulf of Corinth

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