Debris avalanche deposits: emplacement dynamics, morphology and hazards (Invited)

Debris avalanches from volcanoes form some of the largest subaerial and submarine landslide deposits on Earth, covering vast areas (10s to 100s km2) and displaying typically hummocky surface topography. Numerical models have been developed that can identify the area threatened by an event of known volume from a known volcano, if the runout mechanics can be understood. Better understanding the hazards from these enormous events requires realistic parameterization of models, which must be able to explain debris avalanche deposit geometries under water, in air, on Mars and in vacuo on the Moon. We have shown that the complex deposit geometry of the 25 km3 Socompa deposit in Chile can be explained by the effects of basal debris fragmenting during runout. The hummocky surface morphology of many debris avalanche deposits again indicates that the emplacement process involved a very mobile basal layer, above which the travelling mass passively extends, leading to lateral and longitudinal disaggregation of the mass into discrete blocks whose dimension reflects the mass depth. Submarine debris avalanches can also be modelled on this basis, because the presence of ambient water does not fundamentally alter the fragmentation process; to assess the additional hazards of debris avalanches entering into water, models are available to simulate the tsunami generated by such events.