Investigation of Post-Failure behavior of Submarine Landslides

Submarine landslides have been observed in many parts of the world. Scars of failed slopes of gigantic dimensions were discovered in the Norwegian, Caspian and Mediterranean seas as well as offshore Australia, the US and with similar features of smaller size in Swiss lakes.

These historical cases show a wide variety of different geomorphological structures: compression ridges, ploughing, run-out at the toe, tension cracks and lateral spreading at the top of the failed slab. These post-failure mechanisms pose a major threat to offshore engineering infrastructure and as well as to coastal communities due to their mass movement and tsunamigenic potential.

This project is part of a larger research effoert carried out by our group, and aims to investigate the controlling parameters contributing to the evolution of each one of the above post-failure mechanisms by utilizing an innovative large deformations finite element framework.