3D Ligurian Margin

The Ligurian continental margin is a sensitive area with respect to earthquakes and slope failure, which became particularly evident in 1979 during a submarine mass movement and a subsequent tsunami, which occurred in the vicinity of the airport of the city of Nice, Southern France.

Various trigger mechanisms are discussed, which could cause the instability of shelf and slope sediments, e.g. through liquefaction. Among several expeditions to the area, R/V Meteor Cruise M7n-1 provided a first multichannel data set, which had been used to propose IODP drilling in the area. In parallel, attempts have been made to sample sediments and to investigrate the critical lithologies and depth interval by CPT investigations, using the deep reaching French Penfeld Penetrometer System.

For a further refinement of the complex geology, the R/V  Posdieon Cruise POS500 collected a close to 3D seismic dataset across the failed area, concentrating on the shelf and shelf edge.

55 multichannel seismic lines were acquired at a spacing of 25 m, completed by further overview seismic lines. The 3D block was used to integerate all of the sampling and geotechnical information and to increase the image quality in the critical area of the Nice Airport Slide.

Master Thesis

Singh, Rashpal (2019) Processing and Interpretation of 3D high-resolution multichannel seismic data from offshore Nice, Southern France. MSc Thesis.