Tsunamigenic submarine landslides and deep-marine canyons of Australia’s Tasman Sea margin

Voyage summary

RV Investigator will undertake a research voyage to the Tasman Sea to investigate submarine landslides and the deep marine canyons along Australia's east coast.

The research will help identify the risks that locally generated tsunamis from submarine landslides  can pose to communities along the coast and inform strategies to mitigate those risks. Research shows that submarine landslides have occurred along the east coast of Australia for about 15 million years and are expected to occur in the future with continued potential to generate tsunamis. 

The primary voyage objective is to investigate the marine geology and sample deep water features along Australia's east coast which have not previously been mapped in high detail. Some of the previous mapping for this research was completed during a voyage of RV Southern Surveyor in 2013 . A secondary objective is to identify, map, and sample continental-shelf-edge features that may influence the movement of materials from the shelf.

There is one other project on the voyage:

• Argo float deployments (Mr Craig Hanstein, CSIRO): Deployment of two standard Argo floats.

The science team on this voyage will have 32 participants representing 3 institutions (CSIRO, University of Sydney and University of Newcastle). There are 21 ship crew on this voyage.

Voyage outcomes

A summary of voyage outcomes will be published approximately 3-6 months after the completion of the voyage.