Sea floor stability offshore Lofoten, Northern Norway

-

The main focus of this project will be to study the past and present mass movements and resedimentation processes on the continental slope offshore Lofoten. The investigation will be based on an extensive multi-disciplinary data set, comprising multi-beam swath bathymetry, high-resolution side-scan sonar data and high-resolution seismic records, most of which are already in the data base at the University of Tromsø. In addition, gravity and piston cores will be acquired at key locations carefully selected from investigating all available geophysical data. The cores will be investigated using standard sedimentological techniques. Physical properties and geotechnical testing (ring shear tests, triaxial tests,direct simple shear and/or consolidation testing) will be undertaken at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute. Here, special focus will be to identify, characterise and explain the origin of a possible weak layer located only some meters below the sea floor, i.e. using geotechnical properties to assess p resent-day regional slope stability.