French Alpine Foreland Holocene Paleoseismicity Revealed by Coeval Mass Wasting Deposits in Glacial Lakes

Emmanuel Chapron (1, 2) , Anaëlle Simonneau (2) , Grégoire Ledoux (3) , Fabien Arnaud (4) , Patrick Lajeunesse (3) , Patrick Albéric (5)

1 GEODE - Géographie de l'environnement
2 ISTO - Institut des Sciences de la Terre d'Orléans - UMR7327
3 Centre d'études nordiques et Département de Géographie
4 EDYTEM - Environnements, Dynamiques et Territoires de la Montagne
5 ISTO - Institut des Sciences de la Terre d'Orléans

The French alpine foreland area has been struck by several earthquakes with magnitudes above 5 on Richter scale in recent history. In this paper we document the regional impact of historical and Holocene earthquakes based on the identification of mass wasting deposits in glacial lakes at different settings. Lake Le Bourget and Lake Paladru are situated at low elevations (respectively 231 m–492 m) and Lake Blanc Huez is located at 2500 m altitude. Through the integration of high-resolution acoustic profiles and accurately dated sediment samples from cores, recent coeval mass wasting deposits in each lake were correlated with nearby historical earthquakes, whereas coeval mass wasting deposits around 5200 cal BP and 9550 cal BP in these three lakes were correlated to regional earthquakes events.

Keywords: Subaquatic landslide; Seiche deposit; Glacial lake; Earthquake; Geohazard

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Continental interfaces, environment; Environmental Sciences

Emmanuel Chapron, Anaëlle Simonneau, Grégoire Ledoux, Fabien Arnaud, Patrick Lajeunesse, et al.. French Alpine Foreland Holocene Paleoseismicity Revealed by Coeval Mass Wasting Deposits in Glacial Lakes. Submarine Mass Movements and their Consequences, V, pp.341-349, 2015, 978-3-319-20978-4. ⟨10.1007/978-3-319-20979-1_34⟩. ⟨insu-01240867⟩