Need sources for the Storregga tsunami?

Question

Hi
Could you help me? i have to do a lit review on the Storragga or Storegga tsunami around 7000 years ago. Would be grateful if you could point me in any academic sources.
Many thanks

Answer 1

You will find it much better to do a search on "Storegga Slide" rather than "Storegga Tsunami" on the internet.

There is a lot of academic material on the Storegga Slide itself (an absolutely huge submarine landslide off the coast of Norway). It can be mapped on the sea bed quite clearly, as the landslip scars and debris flows are still preserved. I believe that the debris flows that were triggered down-slope from the slide extend for hundreds of kms.

There is a lot of stuff published on the internet about the geology, geomorphology and sedimentology of the Storegga Slide. Given it's size, and volume displacement of seawater, one might have expected it to have triggered a tsunami, but the evidence for this is far less obvious. Obviously there are no written records, not even anything preserved in folklore. Therefore, you'll find very much less on the internet if you look for "Storegga Tsunami".

That said, I have seen references in journals of recent sedimentology and archaeology to the destruction of pre-historic settlements around the north and west coasts of Scotland. Apparently, along the coastal fringe, there is a distinctive disturbed layer containing a jumble of prehistoric artefacts, overlain by marine-derived sand. This layer, which has a wide distribution along the coast, has been dated in many areas to around 7000 years ago, and would seem attributable to a single catastrophic event. Some academic workers have put two and two together and attributed these deposits to a tsunami caused by the Storegga Slide.

Check out, for example: http://www.fettes.com/shetland/Storegga.html

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

This might be of interest, at least as a start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide

http://web.uvic.ca/ceor/hydrates/2005/pres_2005-3_Buenz.pdf