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Liquefaction

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Earthquakes and Water

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences ((LNEARTH,volume 114))

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Abstract

Helice , a prosperous coastal town in ancient Greece, disappeared entirely under the sea after being leveled by a great earthquake in 373/2 BC (Marinatos, 1960). The phenomenon was repeated at the same place, though to a lesser degree, during an earthquake in 1861, which was studied by Schmidt (1875) and a drawing of the affected area was made (Fig. 2.1), showing extensive lateral spreading and subsidence of land along the coast. Similar phenomena were documented along the coast near Anchorage, Seward and Valdez following the 1964 M8.6 Alaska earthquake (see Sect. 2.2), where the slumping of land was shown to be caused by the liquefaction of soft clays and sands underneath a gentle slope (Seed, 1968).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Berkeley Dept. Earth & Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720-4767, USA

    Prof.Dr. Chi-Yuen Wang & Prof. Michael Manga

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  1. Prof.Dr. Chi-Yuen Wang
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  2. Prof. Michael Manga
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Correspondence to Chi-Yuen Wang .

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Wang, CY., Manga, M. (2010). Liquefaction. In: Earthquakes and Water. Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences, vol 114. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00810-8_2

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