In 2025 about 3 Billion people will live within 100 km of the coast (United Nations 1996). The dramatic increase in coastal populations along with new ventures in offshore human activities as a response to the growing demand on resources set new challenges to the assessment and mitigation of marine hazards. Tsunamis are one of the most devastating and dangerous natural marine hazards, a quarter of which are caused by submarine landslides (Tappin 2010). Studies of submarine slides have until now to a large extend focused on mapping, identification and description of mass transport deposits observed in e.g. seismic profiles and bathymetric data. Numerous hypothesis as to what could have caused these mass movements have been put forward, but often lack quantitative tests. We want to take a step beyond the observational approach and integrate field data from the Northeast Atlantic margin with numerical models.
Improved knowledge on the causes of submarine mass movements also allow constraining areas at risk, which will be of interest to stakeholders, such as civil protection agencies, the reinsurance industry, and the Inter-governmental Oceanographic Commission Tsunami Programme that co-ordinates tsunami watch systems in the Northeast Atlantic.