This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.qsa.2026.100345. This is version 1 of this Preprint.
Propagation of the Storegga tsunami in the southeastern North Sea
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Authors
Steven John Gibbons 
,
Stein Bondevik,
Bartosz Kurjanski,
Marc de la Asunción,
Valentina Magni,
Jorge Macías Sánchez,
Andy Emery,
Finn Løvholt
Abstract
Numerical simulations of the 8150 BP Storegga slide event in the Norwegian Sea are necessary for understanding both landslide dynamics and tsunami propagation. Here we focus on the southern North Sea, South East of Dogger Bank, and the shores of Denmark and Germany where there have been reports of Storegga tsunami deposits. We simulate the slide using a recently developed cohesive landslide model that has demonstrated success in predicting both the extent of landslide run-out and tsunami run-up heights farther north, and we model sea surface elevations, current velocities, and arrival times of the tsunami. However, the model results rely on using an accurate bathymetry for 8150 years ago, but for this part of the southern North Sea such a palaeobathymetry is somewhat uncertain. Thus, we parametrize a continuum of bathymetric models between the present-day bathymetry through two different palaeobathymetric models, and then perform complete simulations for multiple candidate bathymetric models. For many models in which Dogger Bank is completely submerged, the shallow water in this part of the North Sea still represents a significant barrier to tsunami propagation. We compare tsunami metrics between the alternative bathymetries systematically and conclude that the tsunami surface elevations and velocities in the southeastern North Sea are probably too small to have caused erosion and significant deposition of tsunami debris along the coasts of Denmark and Germany. Instead, we reinterpret the deposits as related to the inundation of the coast during the Holocene sea level rise between 7000 and 8000 years ago.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31223/X52F8J
Subjects
Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Keywords
Storegga, Landslide, Tsunami, Dogger Bank, North Sea, Numerical simulations
Dates
Published: 2026-09-28 16:39
Last Updated: 2026-09-28 16:39
License
CC BY Attribution 4.0 International
Additional Metadata
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Data Availability:
The contemporary bathymetry model was obtained from https://www.gebco.net/data-products/gridded-bathymetry-data (GEBCO Bathymetric Compilation Group, 2024). The palaeo-bathymetry relating to the study of Clark et al. (2022b) was obtained from https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.945729 (Clark et al., 2022a). The palaeo-bathymetry relating to the study of Hill et al. (2014) was provided to us by Jon Hill (pers. comm.). A copy of it can be obtained in the file Hill_GEBCO_lambda_0.000.grd available from https://doi.org/10.82554/sdl-121. The BingCLAW code, including the Storegga landslide simulation example, is available from https://github.com/norwegian-geotechnical-institute/BingCLAW_5.6.1 and described by Kim et al. (2019). The code and examples are permanently archived under Zenodo with the DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7695421. The Tsunami-HySEA code is administered by the EDANYA group at the University of Málaga with contact details at https://edanya.uma.es/hysea/index.php/models/tsunami-hysea The interface module that provided compatibility between the output from BingCLAW and the Tsunami-HySEA program is found on https://github.com/dtgeoeu-wp6-tsunamis/Interface-module The GMT software Wessel et al. (2019) was used to generate the maps displayed in this paper. All numerical simulation outputs are openly available for download from the Geo-INQUIRE Simulation Data Lake, hosted by CINECA. The landslide simulation and the numerical convergence tests are found on https://doi.org/10.82554/sdl-56.31 and the simulations for the topobathymetries in the parametrizations between the present day topobathymetry and the palaeobathymetries are found under https://doi.org/10.82554/sdl-121
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