Researchers have reported fears of future underwater landslides and even tsunamis in Antarctica. Experts have pointed to the risk posed by layers of fragile sediment a few hundred meters below the ocean floor. They detailed their observations, carried out in 2017 and 2018, in a study published this Thursday in Nature Communicationsand relayed by GEO.
A climatic origin
The authors of the study studied historical data. The formation of these fragile layers would be linked to climatic changes that occurred during the Neogene period (-2.3 to -2.5 million years ago) and during the Quaternary period (begun 2.6 million years ago). Their work reveals that future seismic events off the coast of Antarctica could cause tsunamis. These would then be likely to reach the coasts of South America, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.
"Giant underwater landslides occurred on the continental margins of high southern and northern latitudes, including the continental margins of Antarctica and Norway," said one of the study's co-authors, from the Arctic University of Norway. According to him, "a better knowledge of these events in Antarctica will also be useful for the assessment of underwater geohazards off Norway".
- Sciences
- Antarctica
- Tsunami
- Ocean
- study
- Landslide