This paper investigates the size distribution of submarine landslides on the middle continental slope of the East China Sea (ECS) using the size of the landslide source regions. Geomorphometric mapping is used to iden...This paper investigates the size distribution of submarine landslides on the middle continental slope of the East China Sea (ECS) using the size of the landslide source regions. Geomorphometric mapping is used to identify 102 mass movements from multibeam bathymetric data and to extract morphological information about the head scarps and side walls. These mass movements have areas ranging between 0.06 km2 and 15.51 km2 and volumes between 0.002 km3 and 2 km3. The area vs volume relationship of these failure scarps is approximately linear, suggesting a fairly uniform failure thickness in each event with scarce deep excavating landslides. The cumulative area distribution of the slope failures can be described by an inverse power law. The submarine landslides on the mid-ECS continental slope could be considered as a large-scale self-organizing system because they have the characteristics of a dissipative system in a critical state.展开更多
基金funded by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Nos.40506018, 40576033,40421150011, 40706038 and 40606026)the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2003cb716706)the Open Research Foundation of State Key Labora-tory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Pro-tection (No. GZ2006-01)
文摘This paper investigates the size distribution of submarine landslides on the middle continental slope of the East China Sea (ECS) using the size of the landslide source regions. Geomorphometric mapping is used to identify 102 mass movements from multibeam bathymetric data and to extract morphological information about the head scarps and side walls. These mass movements have areas ranging between 0.06 km2 and 15.51 km2 and volumes between 0.002 km3 and 2 km3. The area vs volume relationship of these failure scarps is approximately linear, suggesting a fairly uniform failure thickness in each event with scarce deep excavating landslides. The cumulative area distribution of the slope failures can be described by an inverse power law. The submarine landslides on the mid-ECS continental slope could be considered as a large-scale self-organizing system because they have the characteristics of a dissipative system in a critical state.
