Tsunamis generated by asteroid impacts, rockslides and landslides

We address important, historical tsunami (large destructive wave) events. 1. The Mjølnir asteroid impact in the Barents Sea (142 mill. years BP). The environmental consequences of marine impacts from asteroids are not sufficiently appreciated and understood. The Mjølnir crater is one of the few known marine impact craters and i ts geology has been studied in a concurrent project. Tsunamis from the impact will be computed and comparisons made to geological findings. 2. The Storegga Slide (8000 BP) located on the continental margin oss Mid-Norway is one of the largest known submarine slides in the world. Observations of deposits on land indicate a tsunami of 3-12 m run-up from the same time frame. Tsunami generation a nd propagation will be analyzed both for the Storegga slide and the Trænadjupet slide (4000 BP), located north of the Storegga slide. In addition to the case studies the project aims at general progress in modeling of tsunamis and related phenomena. We will develop generic tools for tsunami propagation and generation, including dispersive and nonlinear effects and dynamic models for sli des and mass gravity flows. The numeric modules will be embedded in a domain decomposition framework suitable nesting and parallel computing.