Causal link between Quaternary paleoclimatic changes and volcanic islands evolution

Giant landslides and resulting tsunamis represent the main geologic hazards linked to volcanic island evolution. From offshore and onland studies, flank failures have been identified around numerous islands, in most geodynamic contexts. However, the triggering conditions are still poorly understood and several causes may act simultaneously to reach a critical threshold. Here we show that most large volume (> 10 km(3)) landslides occur at glacial stages termination and we propose that a causal relationship between flank collapse of volcanic islands and global climatic changes has existed at least since 900 kyr. Moreover, ages reported here favour the hypothesis that major collapses occurred during the onset of glacial to interglacial transitions when sudden influx of melt water from polar ice caps causes rapid sea level rise. We propose that rapid sea level rise induces enhanced coastal erosion and sudden changes of pore pressure conditions within basal layers, which favour edifice failure.