Abstract
Evidence of previous submarine mass failures in the form of excavation scars has been widely documented in the Cook Strait Canyons of New Zealand. Recent bathymetry surveying has identified a well-defined submarine landslide scar and its associated debris deposit on the northern slope of southern Hikurangi Trough. The newly acquired multi-beam data allowed determination of the location and extent of the deposit, estimation of its volume, as well as reconstruction of both the pre-failure bathymetry and the initial state of the mass failure. A dynamically coupled two-layer model was used to numerically investigate this submarine debris avalanche and its resulting tsunami impact on the coasts of central New Zealand. The modeling results show a fairly good overall agreement with the observed debris deposition and also suggest that tsunami associated with the debris avalanche quite possibly inundated the coasts of central New Zealand, with maximum run-up elevations of between 3 and 5 m in several nearby locations.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the invaluable comments and suggestions from the reviewers Dr Nabil Sultan and Dr David Tapppin and the Editor Dr Thomas Hubble during the preparation of this manuscript. Their contributions are highly appreciated.
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Wang, X., Mountjoy, J., Power, W.L., Lane, E.M., Mueller, C. (2016). Coupled Modelling of the Failure and Tsunami of a Submarine Debris Avalanche Offshore Central New Zealand. In: Lamarche, G., et al. Submarine Mass Movements and their Consequences. Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research, vol 41. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20979-1_60
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20979-1_60
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