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    Morphology of late Quaternary submarine landslides along the U.S. Atlantic continental margin

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    Twichell et al_MG.pdf (1.454Mb)
    Date
    2009-02-21
    Author
    Twichell, David C.  Concept link
    Chaytor, Jason D.  Concept link
    ten Brink, Uri S.  Concept link
    Buczkowski, Brian  Concept link
    Metadata
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    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/2966
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2009.01.009
    DOI
    10.1016/j.margeo.2009.01.009
    Keyword
     Landslides; Continental margin; Atlantic Ocean; Sediments; Slope processes 
    Abstract
    The nearly complete coverage of the U.S. Atlantic continental slope and rise by multibeam bathymetry and backscatter imagery provides an opportunity to reevaluate the distribution of submarine landslides along the margin and reassess the controls on their formation. Landslides can be divided into two categories based on their source areas: those sourced in submarine canyons and those sourced on the open continental slope and rise. Landslide distribution is in part controlled by the Quaternary history of the margin. They cover 33% of the continental slope and rise of the glacially influenced New England margin, 16% of the sea floor offshore of the fluvially dominated Middle Atlantic margin, and 13% of the sea floor south of Cape Hatteras. The headwall scarps of open-slope sourced landslides occur mostly on the lower slope and upper rise while they occur mostly on the upper slope in the canyon-sourced ones. The deposits from both landslide categories are generally thin (mostly 20–40 m thick) and comprised primarily of Quaternary material, but the volumes of the open-slope sourced landslide deposits can be larger (1–392 km3) than the canyon-sourced ones (1–10 km3). The largest failures are located seaward of shelf-edge deltas along the southern New England margin and near salt domes that breach the sea floor south of Cape Hatteras. The spatial distribution of landslides indicates that earthquakes associated with rebound of the glaciated part of the margin or earthquakes associated with salt domes were probably the primary triggering mechanism although other processes may have pre-conditioned sediments for failure. The largest failures and those that have the potential to generate the largest tsunamis are the open-slope sourced landslides.
    Description
    This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Marine Geology 264 (2009): 4-15, doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2009.01.009.
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    • Coastal and Shelf Geology
    • Energy and Geohazards
    • Information Science
    • Geology and Geophysics (G&G)
    Suggested Citation
    Marine Geology 264 (2009): 4-15
     

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