A new methodology to assess the potential of conjectural trigger mechanisms of submarine landslides exemplified by marine gas occurence on the Balearic Promontory

Publikationstyp
Journal Article
Date Issued
2021-12-20
Sprache
English
Author(s)
Kaminski, Pauline  orcid-logo
Sager, Thore  
Grabe, Jürgen  
Urlaub, Morelia  
Institut
Geotechnik und Baubetrieb B-5  
TORE-URI
http://hdl.handle.net/11420/11023
Journal
Engineering geology  
Volume
295
Article Number
106446
Citation
Engineering Geology 295: 106446 (2021-12-20)
Publisher DOI
10.1016/j.enggeo.2021.106446
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85118902444
Publisher
Elsevier Science
Peer Reviewed
true
The destructive potential of submarine landslides for populated coastal areas and maritime infrastructure has been described many times. However, the geological processes that can trigger such landslide events have not yet been fully established. In order to be able to conclusively assess the trigger potential of these processes, a quantification of the slope stability is indispensable. This requires a precise knowledge of the geotechnical and geological boundary conditions before and after the investigated landslide event, as well as the change in these boundary conditions caused by the alleged trigger mechanism. In order to make these described preconditions and the work process generally applicable, a universally adaptable methodology for the identification of trigger mechanisms was developed. Here, it is successfully applied to marine gas occurrence, which has recently been considered as a trigger mechanism due to the negative influence of enclosed gas bubbles on the shear strength of fine-grained soils. The constitutive model by Sultan and Garziglia (2014) is applied to simulate the gas-influenced undrained shear strength of a marine soil from a sediment starved margin on the Balearic Promontory and a range of Finite Element Limit Analyses (FELA) are conducted to determine the resulting loss of stability of different slope geometries. Within the scope of these calculations, the first set of Modified Cam Clay model parameters for a soil from the western Mediterranean is introduced. Based on the simulations, it can be concluded that marine gas occurrence decreases the overall stability of a slope compared to the saturated state. However, it also becomes obvious that the prevailing slope geometries with low inclinations are stable with a substantial capacity reserve for all simulated scenarios. Conclusively, gassy soil can be designated as a preconditioning factor decreasing the slope stability, as the state of failure can only be reached if the slope was in a precarious state before, or in combination with other impacts.
Subjects
Unterwasserböschung
submarine slope
submarine landslide
slope stability
DDC Class
550: Geowissenschaften
600: Technik
620: Ingenieurwissenschaften