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Submarine landslides at the eastern Sunda margin: observations and tsunami impact assessment

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Abstract

Our analysis of new bathymetric data reveals six submarine landslides at the eastern Sunda margin between central Java and Sumba Island, Indonesia. Their volumes range between 1 km³ in the Java fore-arc basin up to 20 km³ at the trench off Sumba and Sumbawa. We estimate the potential hazard of each event by modeling the corresponding tsunami and its run-up on nearby coasts. Four slides are situated remarkably close to the epicenter of the 1977 tsunamigenic Sumba M w  = 8.3 earthquake. However, comparison of documented tsunami run-up heights and arrival times with our modeling results neither allows us to confirm nor can we falsify the hypothesis that the earthquake triggered these submarine landslides.

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Acknowledgments

This is publication 25 of the GITEWS project (German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System). The project is carried out through a large group of scientists and engineers from GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ) and its partners from DLR, AWI, GKSS, IFM-GEOMAR, UNU, BGR, GTZ, as well as from Indonesian and other international partner institutions. Funding is provided by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), grants 03TSU01 (GITEWS) and 03G0190 (SINDBAD). We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their careful and detailed comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Sascha Brune, Andrey Y. Babeyko & Stephan V. Sobolev

  2. Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), Stilleweg 2, 30655, Hannover, Germany

    Stefan Ladage & Christian Müller

  3. Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel (IFM-GEOMAR), Wischhofstr. 1-3, 24148, Kiel, Germany

    Heidrun Kopp

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  1. Sascha Brune
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  6. Stephan V. Sobolev
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Correspondence to Sascha Brune.

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Brune, S., Ladage, S., Babeyko, A.Y. et al. Submarine landslides at the eastern Sunda margin: observations and tsunami impact assessment. Nat Hazards 54, 547–562 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9487-8

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