Paid summer placement: Sediment and carbon transport during tsunami transport in the South Sandwich Islands

One of the largest ever recorded earthquakes in the South Atlantic (Mw 8.2) occurred in the South Sandwich Islands in 2021, which caused a global spreading tsunami that reached nearly every ocean basin.

Tsunamis can be generated by sudden displacement of the ocean, either by earthquake, or earthquake-triggered submarine landslide (or combination of both). Submarine landslides can generate the largest and most destructive tsunamis, as they displace huge volumes of sediment, often exceeding the size of their terrestrial counterparts by several orders of magnitude. It is unknown which mechanism caused the tsunami following the Mw 8.2 earthquake. Furthermore, the South Sandwich Islands pose an unknown global geohazard risk with little known about how active slope processes (e.g. submarine landslides) are due to the isolated and logistically challenging location limiting seafloor mapping. The arc consists of submarine volcanoes and seamounts within an active subduction zone on the South Sandwich tectonic plate. Available bathymetric data show numerous submarine landslides on the flanks of submarine volcanoes and seamounts with recent analysis showing >300 slide scars.  Additionally, downslope transport into trenches from earthquake-triggered turbidites has been recognised as a efficient transport pathway of organic carbon and the primary mechanism for carbon transport from the surface to the Earth’s interior, though significant uncertainties on the volume of carbon remain.

Location: University of Plymouth

Duration: 6 weeks

Further details and application: https://aries-dtp.ac.uk/reps/sediment-and-carbon-transport-during-tsunami-transport-in-the-south-sandwich-islands-rep-2026/