Mobility and dynamics of Giant landslides

Abstract

The rarity of large landslides reduces the number of observations and hinders the understanding of these phenomena. Runout distance was used here to determine whether the large landslide deposit formed several thousand years ago in northern Tahiti was caused by a single or multiple events. Using modelling to quantify the dynamics of this event suggested that a single event or a small number of events (n<10) were responsible, and that the maximum slide velocity was high (>125 m/s) under partially submarine conditions. Such submarine propagation favoured a slower dynamic but a longer runout. The effective basal friction under submarine conditions ranged from 0.2 < $\mu$ < 0.3.