Quick
Search: 		  
advanced search
 GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help 
Geology Email Content Delivery
JOURNAL HOME HELP CONTACT PUBLISHER SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Geology; October 2000; v. 28; no. 10; p. 903-906; DOI: 10.1130/0091-7613(2000)28<903:DTMEIT>2.0.CO;2
© 2000 Geological Society of America
This Article
Right arrow Figures Only
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (12)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Aylsworth, J.M.
Right arrow Articles by Guertin, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
GeoRef
Right arrow GeoRef Citation

Did two massive earthquakes in the Holocene induce widespread landsliding and near-surface deformation in part of the Ottawa Valley, Canada?

J.M. Aylsworth1, D.E. Lawrence1 and J. Guertin2

1 Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E8, Canada
2 8 Pine Ridge Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3N 1C6, Canada

Recent evidence based on ages of large landslides and the existence of severely disturbed terrain in Champlain Sea sediments to the east of Ottawa suggests that this area may have been the site of two of the most geologically destructive earthquakes in eastern Canada. The walls of several paleochannels, downcut into sensitive marine clayey silts, are scarred by numerous large earthflows of sizes unequaled in historical time. While radiocarbon ages of 15 landslides, as much as 35 km apart, range from ca. 1870 to 5130 yr B.P., the majority of events cluster at ca. 4550 yr B.P. The coincidence of numerous large failures in different paleovalleys, occurring concurrently, long after channel abandonment and at a time of drier climate, suggests that the widespread landsliding was triggered by a strong earthquake. Close to the landslide area, areas of very disturbed terrain in a flat erosional plain show severely deformed bedding and irregular ground subsidence and are attributed to a large earthquake, ca. 7060 yr B.P., that strongly shook a thick sequence of sensitive material filling deep, steep-sided, bedrock basins.

Key Words: landslide • earthquake • liquefaction • deformation • Ottawa




This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J ENVIRON ENG GEOPHYSHome page
B. Benjumea, J. A. Hunter, S. E. Pullan, G. R. Brooks, M. Pyne, and J. M. Aylsworth
Vs30 and Fundamental Site Period Estimates in Soft Sediments of the Ottawa Valley from Near-Surface Geophysical Measurements
Journal of Environmental & Engineering Geophysics, December 1, 2008; 13(4): 313 - 323.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Bulletin of the Seismological Society of AmericaHome page
S. Ma and G. M. Atkinson
Focal Depths for Small to Moderate Earthquakes (mN >=2.8) in Western Quebec, Southern Ontario, and Northern New York
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, April 1, 2006; 96(2): 609 - 623.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 GeologyHome page
M. Maslin, M. Owen, S. Day, and D. Long
Linking continental-slope failures and climate change: Testing the clathrate gun hypothesis
Geology, January 1, 2004; 32(1): 53 - 56.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


JOURNAL HOME HELP CONTACT PUBLISHER SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright © 2009 by Geological Society of America