Numerical Simulation of Tsunami Generation by the Potential Flank Collapse of the Cumbre Vieja Volcano

We perform numerical simulations of wave generation by the potential flank collapse of the Cumbre Vieja Volcano (CVV; La Palma ,Canary Islands, Spain). Subaerial slide scenarios are first defined based on recent slope stability studies of CVV; the identified scenarios have smaller volumes than those proposed by Ward and Day (2001), in the pioneering work that triggered the interest of the research community for CVV. Simulations of tsunami sources are performed using the previously validated (Abadie et al., 2010) 3D incompressible multifluid Navier-Stokes model THETIS. Both 2D and 3D simulations (the latter using a cylindrical mesh) are performed, which investigate near field wave generation. Results show that a slide of 60-70 km would have very significant consequences, at least for la Palma and other surrounding islands. Far field waves (tsunamis) are simulated in the 2D horizontal, fully nonlinear and dispersive, Boussinesq model FUNWAVE, which is initialized with the 3D Navier-Stokes solution. Results of preliminary tests are shown in the paper and more results will be presented at the conference.