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Revisiting the February 6th 1783 Scilla (Calabria, Italy) landslide and tsunami by numerical simulation

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Abstract

On February 6th, 1783, a landslide of about 5 × 106 m3 triggered by a 5.8 M earthquake occurred near the village of Scilla (Southern Calabria, Italy). The rock mass fell into the sea as a rock avalanche, producing a tsunami with a run-up as high as 16 m. The tsunami killed about 1,500 people, making it one of the most catastrophic tsunamis in Italian history. A combined landslide-tsunami simulation is proposed in this paper. It is based on an already performed reconstruction of the landslide, derived from subaerial and submarine investigation by means of geomorphological, geological and geomechanical surveys. The DAN3D model is used to simulate the landslide propagation both in the subaerial and in the submerged parts of the slope, while a simple linear shallow water model is applied for both tsunami generation and propagation. A satisfying back-analysis of the landslide propagation has been achieved in terms of run-out, areal distribution and thickness of the final deposit. Moreover, landslide velocities comparable to similar events reported in the literature are achieved. Output data from numerical simulation of the landslide are used as input parameters for tsunami modelling. It is worth noting that locations affected by recordable waves according to the simulation correspond to those ones recorded by historical documents. With regard to run-up heights a good agreement is achieved at some locations (Messina, Catona, Punta del Faro) between computed and real values, while in other places modelled heights are overestimated. The discrepancies, which were most significant at locations characterized by a very low slope gradient in the vicinity of the landslide, were probably caused by effects such as wave breaking, for which the adopted tsunami model does not account, as well as by uncertainties in the historical data.

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Acknowledgments

A significant part of the work described in this paper was done while the first author was a guest researcher at the International Centre for Geohazards (Oslo, Norway). ICG–NGI researchers (Unni Eidsvig, Carl Harbitz, Sylfest Glimsdal and Finn Løvholt) performed the numerical modelling of the tsunami and they gave a fundamental support to the revision of the whole paper. Hence, their support is particularly acknowledged. Authors wish to thank Francesco Latino Chiocci and his research team for collecting submarine data and for the constant and fundamental support. A special thanks to the Guest Editor (A. Cattaneo) for the meticulous revision of the paper and the several comments which contributed to a significant improvement of the paper. This research was funded by the PRIN2006 Italian National project “Integration of inshore and offshore geological and geophysical innovative techniques for coastal landslides studies” (Principal Investigator: F.L. Chiocci), Research Unit: “The engineering-geology model as a tool for the dimensioning of gravity-induced coastal instabilities” (Associated Investigator: F. Bozzano).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, “Sapienza” Università di Roma, P.le Aldo Moro, 5, 00185, Rome, Italy

    P. Mazzanti & F. Bozzano

  2. NHAZCA S.r.l., spin-off “Sapienza” Università di Roma, Via Cori s.n.c., 00177, Rome, Italy

    P. Mazzanti & F. Bozzano

  3. CERI Research Centre “Prediction, Prevention and Mitigation of Geological Risks”, Università di Roma “Sapienza”, Piazza U. Pilozzi, 9 , Valmontone, Italy

    F. Bozzano

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  1. P. Mazzanti
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Correspondence to P. Mazzanti.

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Mazzanti, P., Bozzano, F. Revisiting the February 6th 1783 Scilla (Calabria, Italy) landslide and tsunami by numerical simulation. Mar Geophys Res 32, 273–286 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-011-9117-1

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