Submarine Landslides on the Upper Southeast Australian Passive Continental Margin – Preliminary Findings
Abstract
The southeast Australian passive continental margin is narrow, steep and sediment-deficient, and characterized by relatively low rates of modern sedimentation. Upper slope (<1,200 m) sediments comprise mixtures of calcareous and terrigenous sand and mud. Three of twelve sediment cores recovered from geologically-recent, submarine landslides located offshore New South Wales/Queensland (NSW/QLD) are interpreted to have sampled failure surfaces at depths of between 85 and 220 cm below the present-day seabed. Differences in sediment physical properties are recorded above and below the three slide-plane boundaries. Sediment taken directly above the inferred submarine landslide failure surfaces and presumed to be post-landslide, returned radiocarbon ages of 15.8, 20.7 and 20.1 ka. The last two ages correspond to adjacent slide features, which are inferred to be consistent with their being triggered by a single event such as an earthquake. Slope stability models based on classical soil mechanics and measured sediment shear-strengths indicate that the upper slope sediments should be stable. However, multibeam sonar data reveal that many upper slope landslides occur across the margin and that submarine landsliding is a common process. We infer from these results that: (a) an unidentified mechanism regularly acts to reduce the shear resistance of these sediments to the very low values required to enable slope failure, and/or (b) the margin experiences seismic events that act to destabilise the slope sediments.
Department
Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping
Publication Date
9-2012
Volume
31
Series
Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research
Pages
55-66
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1007/978-94-007-2162-3_5
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Recommended Citation
Clarke, S L.; Hubble, T; Airey, D; Yu, Phyllis; Boyd, R; Keene, J; Exon, N; and Gardner, James V., "Submarine Landslides on the Upper Southeast Australian Passive Continental Margin – Preliminary Findings" (2012). Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping. 658.
https://scholars.unh.edu/ccom/658