Submarine landslides at the eastern Sunda margin: observations and tsunami impact assessment

Our analysis of new bathymetric data reveals six submarine landslides at the eastern Sunda margin between central Java and Sumba Island, Indonesia. Their volumes range between 1 km³ in the Java fore-arc basin up to 20 km³ at the trench off Sumba and Sumbawa. We estimate the potential hazard of each event by modeling the corresponding tsunami and its run-up on nearby coasts. Four slides are situated remarkably close to the epicenter of the 1977 tsunamigenic Sumba M w = 8.3 earthquake. However, comparison of documented tsunami run-up heights and arrival times with our modeling results neither allows us to confirm nor can we falsify the hypothesis that the earthquake triggered these submarine landslides.