In November 2016, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in New Zealand triggered underwater mudslides in the underwater canyon off the coastline. This led to high-velocity currents to flush 850 tonnes of sediment from the canyon into the ocean.

This "canyon flushing" caused what was once a diverse ecosystem of invertebrates along the Kaikoura underwater canyon to become as "quiet as a desert."

A paper in the Deep Sea Research Part I journal describes how sperm whales were subsequently affected by the quake and how they changed their foraging habits as a result.