Prodigious Submarine Landslides on the Hawaiian Ridge

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Prodigious Submarine Landslides on the Hawaiian Ridge JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICALRESEARCH, VOL. 91, NO Bl2. PAGES 17,465-17,484,DECEMBER 10,1989 ProdigiousSubmarine Landslides on the HawaiianRidge J. G. Moons.t D. A. Clncur,.r R. T. HolcoNae,2P. W. LIpunN,3 W. R. NonnaRRK.rANo M. E. TonnesaNr The extensive area covered by major submarine mass wasting deposits on or near the Hawaiian Ri{ge has been delimited by systematicmapping of the Hawaiian exclusive economic zone using the side-lookingsonar system GLORIA. These surveys show that slumps and debris avalanchedeposits r a.e .*posed over about 100.000km of the ridge and adjacent seafloor from Kauai to Hawaii, covering an area more than 5 times the land area of the islands.Some of the individual debris avalanchesare more than 200 km long and about -5()00kml in volume. ranking them among the largeston Earth. The slopefailures that produce thesedeposits begin early in the history ofindividual volcanoeswhen they are small submarine seamounts.culminate near the end of subaerialshield building, and apparently continue long after dormancy. Consequently.landslide debris is an important element in the internal slructure of the volcanoes.The dynamic behaviorof the volcanoescan be modulatedby slope failure, and the structuralfeatures of the landslidesare relatedto elementsof the volcanoesincluding rift zones and fault systents.The landslidesare of two generaltypes, slumpsand debris avalanches.The slumps are slow moving, wide (up to I l0 km). and thick (about l0 km)with transverseblocky ridgesand steep toes. The debris avalanchesare fast moving. long (up to 230 km) compared 10 width. and thinner (0.0-5-2km)l they commonly have a well-detinedamphitheater at their head and hummocky terrain in the lower part. Oceanic disturbance caused by rapid emplacementof debris avalanchesmay have produced high-levelwave deposits (such as the 36-5-melevation Hulopoe Gravel on Lanai) that are found on several islands. Most present-daysubmarine canyons were originally carved subaeriallyin the upper parts of debris avalanches.Subaerial canyon cutting was apparently promoted by the recently steepenedand stripped slopesof the landslideamphitheaters. INrRooucrtou delta slopes, where the relatively shallow water allows high-resolutionsurveys using side-looking sonar, reflection profiling. borehole drilling, and measurementsof geotechni- New perspectiveson the extent and character of subma- cal properties IColenrun ttnd Gorrison, 1977: Prittr and rine slope failures have been obtained with the \ystematic Colemun.l982. 1984tPrior et ul.,1984u,bl. In sloperegions (EEZI mapping of the Hawaiian exclusive economic zone with lower sediment accumulalion rates, earthquakes are (Geologic using the side-looking sonar system GLORIA commonly the tavored triggering mechanism for ground Long-Range Inclined Asdic). In the fall of l9tl8. GLORIA failure over areasof a f'cw hundred squaremeters to as much extending 200 nautical miles from land were com- surveys as 80,000 kmr [e.g.. Fieltl et ul., 1982: Normark, 1974 pleted in a zone from the southeast end of the Hawaiian Kenyon,19871(see also review articlescited earlier). Ridge adjacent to the island of Hawaii northwest to beyond The larger masswasting depositsfrom continentalmargins the the island of Kauai. In this region which includes extend well into deep water and, including the debris flows principal Hawaiian islands, l7 well-definedmirjor landslides associatedwith many submarine slope failures, may reach (Figures Table l). and remnantsof were mapped I and 2 and severalhundred kilometersin length IJacobi, 19761'Bugge et severalothers partly covered by younger depositsalso were a1.. l98tll. Becausemuch of the deposits from these larger found. This report documents the characteristicsof these failures lie in deep water (>2000 m), less is known about irt- landslides, examines their morphologic variations. and their internal structure and composition as compared to processes modified tempts to relatethem to the that built and continentalshelf structures(see discussion by Normurk and the volcanic systemsof the Hawaiian Ridge. Gutmut'her tl9tlSl). The Storegga submarine slide on the The study of submarinemass-wasting deposits composed Norwegian continental margin exceeds5000 kmr in volume poorly bedded volcanic rocks presentsdifficult of massiveor and is one of the largestmass failures lBugge €/ d1., 19881.lt problems not encounteredin the better understooddeposits apparentlyrepresents three episodesoffailure, the secondof composed of sedimentary materials. Slumps. block slides. which may be associatedwith a tsunami deposit along the flows, such processesare widely recognized debris and other east Scottish coast [Dnx'son et al., 1988]. (see in nearly all types of continentalmargin settings reviews Slope lailures on sedimented continental margins are by Moore [1978], Embler, [|982], Kenyon ll987l. Colentun comparatively easy to document as compared to those on and Prior I19881,Lee U989D. These depositsare common rn volcanic slopes.The small-scalefailures in bedded sediment areasof high sedimentationrates and include thick accumu- appear on high-resolution reflection profiles because the lations of sediment with slope-parallelbedding. Features missing sediment section is obvious, and the mass wasting produced by sedimentfailure are well describedon modern depositsshow as lens- or wedge-shapedunits with irregular, -' hummocky surfaces and little or no coherent internal struc- u -s. a;. gic al Su rv e y. M en I o Park. c aI i fo rn i a. ture. Seismic reflection profrles can discern these deposits 'U.S. GeologicalSurvey, University of Washington.Seattle. even when buried by later sediment, and both the scar and iU.S. GeologicalSurvey. Denver. Colorado. base of sediment mass-wasting deposits can be clearly This paperis not subjectto U.S. copyright.Published in 1989by recognized. the AmericanCeophysical Union. In contrast, mass failure on the submarine slopes of Papernumber 89JB027,53. oceanicvolcanoes must be recognizedprimarily on the basi: I 7..16-5 t7,466 MoonE.er el.: SunvlnrNELelrosLtor.s. Hewerr a ( t- I ) ,-*" oA,,-\ l t6l 1OOKM I : ! #i;:,.@ u* t ,". , ::::. 13k L Fig. l. Bathymetric map of the southeasternHawaiian Ridge showing major mass w:rstingfeatures (heavy dashed lines) identified by number in text and'Iable l. Contour interval 200 fathoms (366 m). Biise from lJ.S. Nuvul O ce a rut g rup hic' Ollic e ll97 3). of surfacefeatures as the basalticrock and rubbleare nearly Dana's faulting model was rejected by llitchcot'k ll90(t:. opaqueacoustically. Standard seismic reflection profiling who believed that erosion alone was sufficient to form thc systemsgenerally do not provide subsurfaceinformation on cliffs without the additional complexity of faulting. Werrr- the internalstructure of slidecomponents or of the slopes u,orth |9271, comparing estimates of marine and fluvia. wherethey originated.With relativelyslow accumulation of erosion rates. concluded that marine erosion alone *a. primarily pelagic sediment,the HawaiianRidge slopeadja- insulhcient to produce some of the larger sea cliffs (e.g.. centto the islands hasinsufficient sediment cover to Drovide those of north Molokai) and that they were probably pro- muchassistance in defininelandslide features. duced by faulting. The idea of flank faulting eventuallyled to the concept thai PnevrousWonr oN Hewe.rreNSlopE Fallunes the faults bound the headwalls of giant landslides.Steurn' The role of major landslidingin shapingHawaiian volca- and Clark [1930] and Stearns and Mucdonald |9461 sug. noeshas long been a subjectofdebate. An earlycontroversy gestedthat the 50-km-longHilina fault system on the sourh concernedthe relativeimportance of faultingversus marine flank of Kilauea volcano owes its origin to, and is at the heac erosion in producing high cliffs along the coasts of some of, a major landslide on the steep seaward slope. Macdonul,; islands.The high cliffs of northeastOahu (NuuanuPali), as [l956] later discounted landsliding, suggestingthat largc- well as thoseof eastNiihau, the Napali coastof Kauai, and volume intrusion beneath the volcano center forcibly up- northernMolokai wereinterpretedby Dana [1890,p. 290]as lifted the summit causing faulting on the volcano flank. resultingfrom "profound fracturingof the mountaindome" Moore and Krivoy [1964]revived the landslideconcept fo: and "downdrop" of the seaward part beneath the sea. Kilauea's south flank and suggestedthat not only is thc nh*, n Moont Er lr-.: SunvnntNE LANDSLIDES,Hewnlr t7,467 158 1560 T u(-. {,ri .;,;it + 220 7- ena^ ^ ^ 1::l.:;:.:.;a.i-.f: 5 Nuuanu I l-a;.. / 2 -: :l MOLOKAI i ' -'t '/' / a ?_) -- ,,2Oo i_\--> -^-4' -\\ \ '\. _) \ /{ i',i"-tfft'.5 -l i t5! n 100 2OOKM w/ \i;i1'*[auae-t Kalae-W" {:'..)'\-' '----/ f---- Fig. 2. Map of southeasternHawaiian Ridge showing major slides bounded by dashed lines identified by number in text and Table l; compare with Figure l. Dotted area, hummocky ground (widely spacedwhere subdued);hachured lines, scarps;thin, downslope-directedlines. submarinecanyons and their subaerialcounterparts; heavy dashed line, axis of the Hawaiian Deep: dash-dottedline. crest of the Hawaiian Arch. ': r) lr)fll'. i :rng.il ,':' Hilina fault system related to gravitational sliding but also the pre-Hawaiianseafloor and hence that the slide was as .rntl ll L.. :., :hat the east rift zone of the volcano forms the upper margin muchas l0 km thick. Episodicmovement of this landslide :'.'. .rlttttC of a large seaward moving slump. An analysis of geodetic has been incorporatedinto a model for the
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