ARCTIC GEO-HAZARDS

"Arctic Geo-hazards, Geo-fluids and Climate Change"

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Recent studies indicate that water and methane stored in deep sediments might be abruptly mobilized by warming due to Climate Change. At the particularly climate-sensitive Arctic margin, sudden migration of such deep geo-fluids might cause submarine slope instability and landslides, and might even result in a significant release of methane into the atmosphere. Submarine landslides threaten infrastructures and can generate tsunamis. Today’s high interest in Arctic resources indicates an impending increase in industrial seafloor usage, especially near coastal areas. During past climate oscillations, protruding and retreating Arctic glaciers favored deposition of alternating sandy and clayey layers on the slope. These sediments differ in porosity, density and water content because they experienced disparate depositional history and mechanical consolidation, due to past waning and waxing of grounded glaciers. Ongoing temperature rise may help to free geo-fluids that change current flow rates. Upward fluid migration in fractures and sediment layers with different properties will cause local high pore pressures that will decrease the shear strength of layers and potentially trigger submarine slides. Similar geological scenarios occurring during past interglacial periods are viable for large-scale submarine slides discovered in the region. This project aims at developing a detailed 3D numerical modeling of fluid flow at a type-example of an Arctic continental margin. We will determine the hydrogeological system, and numerically simulate scenarios of changing fluid flow rates, and how they affect pore pressure to study their potential effect on slope stability along the continental slope offshore Svalbard Archipelago (Norway). Modeling will be based on available, unpublished, recently collected 2D seismic data, multibeam bathymetry data, and core data from the region. Structural information will be complemented with laboratory work that will provide sediment properties.'