Monitoring seafloor Deformation and Assessing Landslide hazards associated with fluid pressures (Nice slope)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Achim Kopf
• Subject Area: Palaeontology ; Mineralogy, Petrology and Geochemistry ; Geophysics
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 390994250

The study zone - the Nice Slope (France) - is nested in heavily populated areas, highly exposed to geohazards and is sadly famous for the 1979 catastrophic submarine landslide. Recent analyses have suggested the presence of active deformation processes linked to the presence of shear zones at the edge of the shelf break, an area susceptible to slope failure. The area is considered today as a natural laboratory for landslide initiation studies. The major challenging scientific task in this project is to unravel the coupling between external factors (groundwater activity related to precipitation and sediment loading) and their hazardous consequences. More specifically, we propose to monitor the slope displacement rates, fluid pressure and groundwater tracers along different locations using innovative in situ seafloor instruments in an existing the EMSO real-time network. Results will enable us to assess numerically the probability of failure of the slope in response to external mechanisms.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Co-Investigator: Nabil Sultan, Ph.D.