ALBERT

Description: ABSTRACT FINAL ID: T21E-04 We have studied submarine land-sliding using a seafloor topography and side-scan sonar data along the continental slope of the Middle America Trench. This subduction zone is dominated by tectonic erosion. Studies during the last few decades have shown mass wasting structures at submarine slopes around the world’s continental margins, hot-spot volcanic islands, and volcanic island arcs. At Atlantic margins slides initiate at low slope angles and appear triggered by high sediment accumulation rates. At volcanic islands large-scale land-sliding is caused by volcano sector collapse. At subduction zones with accretionary prisms, land-sliding seems associated to contractional tectonics and fluid seepage. Submarine mass movements at subduction zones dominated by tectonic erosion are comparatively limited. However, tectonic erosion is active in about 50% of the world subduction zones. Distinct failures have been studied at slopes in Peru, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and New Zealand but extensive surveys have not been obtained. We present a comprehensive data sets on seafloor mapping on a subduction zone dominated by tectonic erosion. The data covers much of the Middle America Trench (MAT) from the Mexico-Guatemala border to Costa Rica – Panama border. The goal of this contribution is to evaluate how long-term tectonics caused by subduction erosion preconditions the continental slope structure to modulate the generation of land-sliding. We show that changes in subduction erosion processes, interacting with the local topography of the subducting plate correlate to variations in the type and distribution of failures along the slope of the region.