A New Type of Device Used on Submarine Landslides Monitoring

Abstract Submarine landslides in gas hydrate areas are a significant geo-hazard that can cause considerable damage to offshore infrastructures, dramatically change the marine environment and seriously threaten human lives and property. Gas and gas hydrate disassociation was considered to be a main factor inducing submarine landslide. However, the processes and mechanism of submarine landslides caused by gas and gas hydrate dissociation are not clearly understood. Therefore, we design a Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) accelerometer array to study and monitor the deep displacement of submarine landslides. The MEMS accelerometer array consists of several gravity acceleration-sensing units that are connected to an I2C-communication bus. By sensing the three-axis tilt angles, the direction and magnitude of the displacement for a measurement unit can be calculated. In the end, the laboratory model test was designed to verify the operation of the device in landslide monitoring, which demonstrated the capacities of the monitoring system for collecting real-time and in-situ information during the slope failure.