1. Tsunamigenic submarine landslides along the Xauen-Tofiño banks in the Alboran Sea (Western Mediterranean Sea)
- Author
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Abdellah Ammar, Alain Rabaute, Manfred Lafosse, Clément Maleuvre, Martin Jollivet-Castelot, Elia d'Acremont, Christian Gorini, Belén Alonso, Juan Tomás Vázquez, Gemma Ercilla, Mathieu Rodriguez, European Commission, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España), Laboratoire de géologie de l'ENS (LGENS), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Département des Géosciences - ENS Paris, École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL), Institut des Sciences de la Terre de Paris (iSTeP), Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Géologie (ENSG), Université de Lorraine (UL), Laboratoire d’Océanologie et de Géosciences (LOG) - UMR 8187 (LOG), and Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale (ULCO)-Université de Lille-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD [France-Nord])
- Subjects
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,[SDU.STU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences ,010502 geochemistry & geophysics ,01 natural sciences ,Seamount ,Submarine landslides ,Mediterranean sea ,access ,Geochemistry and Petrology ,Submarine tectonics and volcanism ,14. Life underwater ,Medio Marino ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Submarine earthquake ,Alboran Margin ,landslides ,research ,Tsunami ,geophysics ,Centro Oceanográfico de Málaga ,[SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics] ,Tsunamis ,Africa ,texture ,Geology ,Seismology ,Submarine landslide - Abstract
Rodriguez, Mathieu ... et al.-- 16 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, The active Eurasia–Nubia plate boundary runs across the Alboran Sea in the Western Mediterranean Sea, where the connection between the Atlantic and Mediterranean water masses occurs. Earthquakes above magnitude Mw > 6 may favour the occurrence of landslides within contouritic drifts in the Alboran Sea. A compilation of recent multibeam data reveals for the first time the distribution of slope failures along the Xauen–Tofiño banks, in the southern Alboran Sea. Here, we provide a detailed mapping and description of the morphology of eight Holocene landslides, including volume estimations of the failed mass and the related mass transport deposits (MTDs). The most voluminous landslide mobilized ∼0.5 km3 of sediment at the initial stage of slope failure, and formed a ∼2.2–5.6 km3 MTD. A finite-difference numerical model, assimilating the landslide to a granular flow, simulates tsunami generation and propagation for a slide similar to the most voluminous one. Simulations show that the coastline of Al Hoceima may be impacted by a ∼0.5-m-high tsunami wave, whereas the coastline of Al Jebha may be impacted by a ∼1-m-high tsunami wave, only ∼13 min after sediment failure. The 0.2-m-high tsunami waves may impact the southern Spanish coast of the Iberian Peninsula ∼20 min after slide initiation. Although the elevations of the modeled tsunami waves are modest, landslides from the Xauen–Tofiño banks may represent a more dangerous source of tsunami in some parts of the Moroccan coast than earthquakes, This work was funded by the French program Actions Marges, the EUROFLEETS program (FP7/2007-2013; no. 228344), project FICTS-2011-03-01 and is a contribution to the CONTOURIBER (CTM2008-06399-MAR) and MONTERA (CTM-14157-C02) projects, funded by the Spanish Science and Innovation Ministry
- Published
- 2017
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