submarinemasswastingoffsoutherncentralchile.docVIP

Submarine mass wasting off Southern Central Chile: Distribution and possible mechanisms of slope failure at an active continental margin David V?lker, Jacob Geersen, Jan H. Behrmann and Willhelm R. Weinrebe SFB574, IFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute for Marine Sciences at the University of Kiel, Wischhofstr. 1-3, Germany (dvoelker@ifm-geomar.de / Phone: +49-431-6002566) Abstract Around 5-6% of the convergent continental margin of Southern Central Chile (33°S-42°S) is shaped by a variety of submarine mass wasting processes. We use swath bathymetric data covering 90% of the continental slope to map and investigate mass wasting-related seafloor features. In total, 62 submarine landslides are found that we separate into four categories (slides related to canyons, slides on open slopes, lower slope collapses and giant slope failures) with different failure mechanisms, preconditioning factors and time scales. The digital appendix to this article contains spreadsheet data on dimensions, properties and positions of these submarine landslides as well as mappable GIS data of detail features of the individual slides in the GRASS and ArcGIS format. Keywords: Submarine landslide, mass-failure, mass-transport, slope failure, active continental margin 1. Introduction With increasing coverage of submarine slopes by swath bathymetry echosounder data, the importance of downslope transport processes for shaping the seafloor becomes evident. Along with the increase in the number of described submarine slides, the knowledge of their variability in size, shape and internal deformation improves. The background relative to slope failure at convergent continental margins is fundamentally different from that of passive continental margins, because: (1) uplift and slope oversteepening are caused by frontal and basal sediment accretion, subduction erosion or seamount subduction; (2) megathrust earthquakes occur with a frequency in the range of centuries. In this study we present a dataset on mass-wa