Slope Stability

April 1995 – Palisades, New York
Convener: Nicholas Pratson

Overview

 

Workshop_SlopeStability_ImageThe workshop on slope stability was convened to focus on the scientific goals of a potential ODP drilling leg devoted to studying submarine slope failure.  Submarine failures are one of the greatest hazards to marine installations (e.g., communications cables, offshore production infrastructure, and national defense facilities).  The workshop identified three principal objectives that need to be met before submarine slope stability can be reliably gauged:

 

  1. Establish why particular slopes fail while adjacent slopes remain intact.
  2. Determine how such failures occur and what the conditions were prior to and during failure that lead to different styles of failure evolution.
  3. Resolve when slope failures occur, and how their timing relates to varying environmental conditions, such as sea-level change.

 

JOI/USSAC Newsletter Article (pdf)

 

Article Authors

 

Lincoln Pratson, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Carols Pirmez, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
David Goldberg, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory