Submarine Slides

Major submarine slide events in deep water are actually associated with gas-charged sediments, gas hydrates, and mud diapirs or mud volcanoes. It is believed by this author that the sediment porewater pressure is locally "pumped up" to anomalous levels when there are free gas or gas hydrates in the adjacent sediments.

A small fluidized mud tongue down-slope of a mud-pot at Dashgil mud volcano
A large mud-slide at another mud vulcano in Azerbaijan

The process that may destabilize the seabed under such circumstamces is thought to be a combination of "tidal pumping", whereby the sediment porewater pressure becomes locally increased, spring sapping, whereby the sediments with higher-than-normal porewater pressure exposed to the seawater are eroded and fluidized, thereby causing sediment disruption, slumping, and sliding. This theory called the "hydraulic slope failure model", is being developed by this author and others.