Transport of typhoon-induced submarine sediment-laden flows off southwestern Taiwan

Since 2006, southern Taiwan experienced destructive typhoons and earthquakes which triggered large scale submarine landslides and turbidity currents and devastated many submarine cables off southwestern Taiwan. Most of cable breakages were located in the Gaoping (GPSC) and Fangliao (FLSC) submarine canyons which indicate submarine canyon is an important pathway for underwater gravity flows that induced by natural hazards. A series of investigations were conducted before and after Morakot typhoon, the sub-bottom profiler and core analysis results revealed the GPSC and FLSC may play different roles in transport sediment from coastal seas to the abyssal ocean during the typhoon invaded period. Off southwestern Taiwan, the GPSC and FLSC are incising from continental shelf to deep sea floor and both of them transport considerable amounts of sediment to the South China Sea. GPSC is directly connected to the Gaoping River on land. The hyperpycnal flows, formed during Typhoon Morakot, delivered coarse sands, gravels and branches of trees into GPSC and deposited at the upper reach. On the contrary, the FLSC, which is smaller, younger and confined to the slope, does not associate with any river on land. A series of turbidites and debrites, which composed by coarse slates, fractal shells, wood fragments and fresh leaves, were observed in cores collected from the head of FLSC through Gaoping slope to the lower reach of GPSC. It implies the torrential rains induced landslides at the southernmost Central Mountain Range may directly delivered large amount of slate fragments through narrow Gaoping shelf into the deep sea. Furthermore, according to Water Resources Agency's groundwater level monitoring data, during Typhoon Morakot, the groundwater level raised significantly at the coastal area of Pingtung Plain. The increased groundwater pressure may lead to high flux of submarine groundwater discharge and induced liquefaction on seafloor. From sub-bottom profiles, the liquefaction structures and chaotic deposits were found widely spread off southwestern Taiwan and we suggest it may highly related to the anomalous submarine groundwater discharge incident. Our results reveal the extreme weather induced catastrophic events (e.g. torrential rains, floods, stormy waves… etc.) can generate devastating sediment-laden flows both in the Gaoping and Fangliao Submarine Canyons and provide an efficient way for delivering organic carbon into the deep sea.