Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series

Pat Manley, Professor of Geology and Director of the Sciences will kick off this year’s Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture series.

“Seismic Triggered Lacustrine Landslides and Lake Tsunamis in Lake Champlain.”

Underwater landslides have been identified in Lake Champlain via Multibeam and CHIRP (compressed high intensity radar pulse) seismic profile imager. Numerous large landslides researched by Middlebury seniors have shown that many of these landslides are coeval. All landslides failed on a specific interface between marine Champlain Sea and modern lacustrine Lake Champlain sediments. The 5000 cal yr BP event has been attributed to a M 6.4 or greater earthquake within the Western Quebec Seismic Zone (WQSZ). The landslides observed in Lake Champlain are likely triggered by this same earthquake. Additionally, lake tsunami models show that these simultaneous landslide failures can generate a surface water wave of 30 feet that can impact the Lake Champlain shoreline within 3-10 minutes after the earthquake.