nan wu1, christopher a.-l. jackson2, michael a. clare3, david m. hodgson4, haryad. nugraha5, michael j. steventon6 and guangfa zhong1
1 state key laboratory of marine geology, tongji university, 1239 siping road, shanghai 200092, china
2 department of earth science and engineering, imperial college london, prince consort road, london sw7 2bp, uk
3 ocean biogeosciences, national oceanography centre, southampton so14 3zh, uk
4 school of earth and environment, university of leeds, leeds ls2 9jt, uk
5 center for sustainable geoscience, universitas pertamina, jakarta 12220, indonesia
6 shell research, shell centre, london se1 7na, uk
abstract：
oozes are the most widespread deep-sea sediment in the global ocean, but very little is known about how changes in their physical properties during burial impact slope stabil-ity and related geohazards. we used three-dimensional seismic reflection, geochemical, and petrophysical data acquired both within and adjacent to 13 large (in total ∼6330 km2) submarine slides on the exmouth plateau, north west shelf, australia, to investigate how the pre-slide physical properties of oozes control slope failure and emplacement processes. our integrated data set allows potential slide surfaces to be detected within ooze successions, a crucial advance for improved submarine geohazard assessment. moreover, we demonstrate that the interplay of tectonics, ocean current activity, and silica diagenesis can prime multiple slides on very low-gradient slopes in tropical oceanic basins. therefore, the diagenetic state of silica-rich sediments should be considered in future studies to improve slope stability assessments.
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