The 1929 Grand Banks landslide of the Canadian Atlantic continental margin - Cruise No. MSM47 - September 30 - October 30, 2015 - St. John's (Canada) - Ponta Delgada, Azores (Portugal). Bathymetry and subsurface based on seismic, acoustic and core data ...

• Main Authors: Krastel, Sebastian, Bräunig, Anja, Feldens, Peter, Georgiopoulou, Aggeliki, Jähmlich, Heiko, Lange, Matthias, Lindhorst, Katja, Llopart, Jaume, Mader, Sarah, Mehringer, Lisa, Merl, Maximilian, Mücke, Isabell, Renkl, Christoph, Roskoden, Robert, Schönke, Mischa, Schulten, Irena, Schwarz, Jan-Philipp, Stevenson, Christopher, Vallee, Maxlimer, Wegener, Babette, Wiesenberg, Lars
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2019
• Subjects: Bathymetry; landslide; multi beam echo sounder; Sediment cores; Seismic; Canada; Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.907950; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.907950

On November 18, 1929, a M7.2 earthquake occurred beneath the Laurentian Channel off the coast of Newfoundland. Nearly simultaneously, 12 undersea trans-Atlantic communication cables were severed and within two hours, a devastating tsunami struck the south coast of Newfoundland, claiming 28 lives. Only in 1952, it was understood that a slump-generated turbidity current caused the sequential severance of the cables and likely generated the tsunami. The 1929 Grand Banks events were pivotal, as they led to the first unequivocal recognition of a turbidity current and landslide-triggered tsunami. The landslide site was visited numerous times as underwater survey technologies evolved. No major head scarp related to the event is recognized. The landslide appears to have affected shallow sediments (top 5-100 m) and was laterally extensive. In order to test the hypothesis that a distributed, laterally extensive, shallow submarine mass failure event caused the tsunami, we collected ~ 1500 km of seismic lines in ...