| Title | Évaluation préliminaire de la répartition des ruptures de versant sousmarines dans les fjords de l'île de Baffin, au Nunavut |
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| Author | Bennett, R; Normandeau, A ; Campbell, D C |
| Source | Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office, Summary of Activities 2020, 2021 p. 83-92  Open Access |
| Links | Online - En ligne
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| Image |  |
| Year | 2021 |
| Alt Series | Natural Resources Canada, Contribution Series 20200573 |
| Publisher | Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office |
| Document | serial |
| Lang. | French |
| Media | on-line; digital |
| Related | This publication is a translation of Preliminary assessment
of the distribution of submarine slope failures in Baffin Island fiords, Nunavut |
| Related | This publication is related to Distribution of slope
failures in eastern Baffin Island fiords, Nunavut |
| File format | pdf |
| Province | Nunavut; Northern offshore region |
| NTS | 15M; 16; 25N; 25O; 25P; 26; 27; 37E; 37G; 37H; 38A; 38B |
| Area | Baffin Island; Baffin Bay |
| Lat/Long WENS | -80.0000 -60.0000 73.0000 63.0000 |
| Subjects | marine geology; surficial geology/geomorphology; geophysics; Nature and Environment; Science and Technology; Health and Safety; coastal environment; marine environments; fiords; landslides; slope
failures; landslide deposits; debris flow deposits; geophysical surveys; acoustic surveys, marine; bathymetry; marine sediments; ice scours; scarps; bedforms; turbidity currents; Infrastructures; landslide escarpments; Public safety |
| Illustrations | location maps; 3-D images; geoscientific sketch maps; geophysical profiles |
| Program | Public Safety Geoscience
Baffin Bay |
| Released | 2021 03 01 |
| Abstract | (unpublished)
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has been conducting research into hazardous marine geological conditions (or geohazards) in Baffin Bay, Nunavut, since 2013. In 2020, part of
NRCan's geohazard research was aimed at mapping the distribution of submarine slope failures in the fiords of eastern Baffin Island using all available multibeam echosounder and sub-bottom profiler data. Submarine slope failures (also known as
submarine landslides) are a type of geohazard that occurs when sediments become unstable on an angled seabed and these sediments move downslope due to gravity. The volume of material moved by a slope failure has the potential to be immense (e.g., the
1929 submarine landslide offshore Newfoundland displaced more than 100 km3 of sediment), so it is important to investigate these features. Although long recognized, the distribution of slope failures in fiords of Baffin Bay is not well understood.
Preliminary mapping shows 273 slope failures observed within 22 fiords, with 86% of the fiords examined having at least one slope failure. It is important to understand the distribution of slope failures, as they have the potential to damage seabed
infrastructure (e.g., underwater fibre-optic cables and pipes) and cause tsunamis. |
| Summary | (Plain Language Summary, not published)
This report summarizes an NRCan research project that is aimed at finding out the amount and location of underwater slope failures in Baffin Island
fiords. Underwater slope failures occur on seabed slopes when sediments become unstable and slide downhill. Underwater slope failures are very similar to landslides on land but can be much larger. All existing sonar data of the seabed and the
sediments under the seabed were used to look for slope failures in 22 Baffin Island fiords. Eighty-six percent of these fiords contained at least one slope failure and 273 slope failures were observed in total. It is important to understand
underwater slope failures as they can damage marine infrastructure (i.e. underwater fibre optic cables) and have the potential to cause tsunamis. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 329004 |
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