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Wave-induced seafloor instabilities in the subaqueous Yellow River Delta—initiation and process of sediment failure

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Abstract

Submarine sediment failures or landslides triggered by storm waves in river delta areas pose a significant risk to coastal infrastructure. Due to the limitations of in situ monitoring technology, existing investigations are mostly carried out with geophysical techniques to provide some basic characteristics (e.g. location, size, runout distance, volume, and potential triggers) of existing submarine landslides. However, it is of equal importance to identify the starting criterion and the in situ evolutionary process of the initial stage of seafloor instabilities—sediment failure, which naturally relies heavily on long-term field observations. A field monitoring system was developed for observing sediment failure, which successfully recorded the wave-induced seabed deformation in the subaqueous Yellow River Delta for the first time. Once sediment failure is initiated, the shallow soil undergoes periodic and reciprocating oscillations under alternating action of wave crests and troughs. The evolution of the maximum deformation depth interface moves from shallow to deep, and then migrates upward from deep to shallow layers (the shallow-deep-shallow pattern), which indicates a stability recovery process following the wave-induced seabed failure, and these processes were found to occur multiple times within one storm event. Laboratory wave flume experimental results reproduced and verified the field observations, while also providing pore pressure data which explains the initiation of sediment failure and the deformation process. Finally, a development pattern of the seafloor instabilities in the subaqueous Yellow River Delta is proposed. The in situ observation methods proposed and the knowledge acquired by field monitoring and flume testing could benefit the investigation of costal seafloor instabilities.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Lei Guo, Lifeng Dong, Zhongnian Yang, Bowen Li, Chaoqi Zhu, Chunsheng Ji, Qikun Zhou, Xing Du, Haiyan Cheng, and Zhenhua Mei for their precious technical support during field monitoring and Dr. Zhang Jianguo for a detailed review of the draft manuscript. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41427803; 41877223), National Special Project for Marine Public Welfare Industry (201005005), Key Research and Development Program of Shandong province, China (2016ZDJS09A03), Key Science and Technology Plan of PowerChina Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited (KY2018-ZD-01), National Natural Science Foundation of China-Shandong Joint Fund for Marine Science Research Centers (U1606401), Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China (2019M662474). Comments from anonymous reviewers and the editor greatly improved the manuscript and are highly appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Environment and Geological Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Zhenhao Wang, Yonggang Jia, Hongxian Shan, Shaotong Zhang, Mingzheng Wen & Xiaolei Liu

  2. First Institute of Oceanography, MNR, Qingdao, 266061, Shandong, China

    Zhenhao Wang, Yongfu Sun & Yupeng Song

  3. Laboratory for Marine Geology, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266061, China

    Zhenhao Wang, Yongfu Sun, Yonggang Jia, Hongxian Shan, Xiaolei Liu & Yupeng Song

  4. Powerchina Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited, Hangzhou, 310014, China

    Zhigang Shan

  5. Qingdao Geological Exploration Institute of China Metallurgical Geology Bureau, Qingdao, 266109, China

    Dongdong Zhao

  6. Offshore Oil Production Plant, SINOPEC Shengli Oilfield, Dongying, 257237, China

    Shipeng Wen

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  1. Zhenhao Wang
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Correspondence to Yongfu Sun or Yonggang Jia.

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Wang, Z., Sun, Y., Jia, Y. et al. Wave-induced seafloor instabilities in the subaqueous Yellow River Delta—initiation and process of sediment failure. Landslides 17, 1849–1862 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-020-01399-2

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