Earthquake and submarine mass failure are the most frequent causes of tsunami waves. While the process of the tsunami generation by earthquakes is reasonably well understood, the generation of tsunami waves during submarine mass failure is not. Estimates of the energy released during a tsunamigenic earthquake and respective tsunami wave draw a clear picture of the efficiency of the tsunami-generating process. However for submarine landslides, this is not as straightforward because the generation process has never been recorded in nature making energy inferences very difficult. Hence the efficiency of submarine landslide as tsunami generators is yet to be conclusively determined. As the result of this uncertainty, different equations, derived from experimental data or theory, result in leading-wave amplitude that vary over 6 orders of magnitude for the same initial slide conditions. To arrive at more robust estimates of the leading-wave characteristics and associated runup, the spatiotemporal dynamics of the coupling between the slide body and water column needs to be investigated. The duration the water surface deformation is coupled with the slide motion is an essential question to shed light on the energy transfer. A parametric study is conducted with the state of-the-art hydrocode iSALE in order to shed light on this complex geophysical event. The mass, viscosity, and depth of submergence are the particular slide parameters varied and their relationship to runup and decoupling time is analyzed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2012-05-10991 |
| Date | 2012 May 1900 |
| Creators | O'Shay, Justin |
| Contributors | Weiss, Robert, Sparks, David |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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