Landslide

Landslide of soil and regolith in Pakistan

A landslide is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rock falls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments. Although the action of gravity is the primary driving force for a landslide to occur, there are other contributing factors affecting the original slope stability. Typically, pre-conditional factors build up specific sub-surface conditions that make the area/slope prone to failure, whereas the actual landslide often requires a trigger before being released.

Contents

Causes of landslides

The Mameyes Landslide, which, buried more than 100 homes, was caused by extensive accumulation of rains and, according to some sources, lightning.
Main article: Causes of landslides

Landslides are caused when the stability of a slope changes from a stable to an unstable condition. A change in the stability of a slope can be caused by a number of factors, acting together or alone:

Natural causes:

Human causes:

Types of landslide

Main article: Landslide classification

Debris flow

Amboori debris flow, occurred on 09th November 2001 in Kerala, India. The event killed 39 people[1]

Slope material that becomes saturated with water may develop into a debris flow or mud flow. The resulting slurry of rock and mud may pick up trees, houses, and cars, thus blocking bridges and tributaries causing flooding along its path.

Debris flow is often mistaken for flash flood, but they are entirely different processes.

Muddy-debris flows in alpine areas cause severe damage to structures and infrastructure and often claim human lives. Muddy-debris flows can start as a result of slope-related factors, and shallow landslides can dam stream beds, provoking temporary water blockage. As the impoundments fail, a "domino effect" may be created, with a remarkable growth in the volume of the flowing mass, which takes up the debris in the stream channel. The solid-liquid mixture can reach densities of up to 2 tons/m³ and velocities of up to 14 m/s (Chiarle and Luino, 1998; Arattano, 2003). These processes normally cause the first severe road interruptions, due not only to deposits accumulated on the road (from several cubic metres to hundreds of cubic metres), but in some cases to the complete removal of bridges or roadways or railways crossing the stream channel. Damage usually derive from a common underestimation of mud-debris flows: in the alpine valleys, for example, bridges are frequently destroyed by the impact force of the flow because their span is usually calculated only for a water discharge. For a small basin in the Italian Alps (area = 1.76 km²) affected by a debris flow, Chiarle and Luino (1998) estimated a peak discharge of 750 m3/s for a section located in the middle stretch of the main channel. At the same cross section, the maximum foreseeable water discharge (by HEC-1), was 19 m³/s, a value about 40 times lower than that calculated for the debris flow that occurred.

Earth flow

A rock slide in Guerrero, Mexico.

Earthflows are downslope, viscous flows of saturated, fine-grained materials, which move at any speed from slow to fast. Typically, they can move at speeds from .17 to 20 km/h. Though these are a lot like mudflows, overall they are slower moving and are covered with solid material carried along by flow from within. They are different from fluid flows in that they are more rapid. Clay, fine sand and silt, and fine-grained, pyroclastic material are all susceptible to earthflows. The velocity of the earthflow is all dependent on how much water content is in the flow itself: if there is more water content in the flow, the higher the velocity will be.

These flows usually begin when the pore pressures in a fine-grained mass increase until enough of the weight of the material is supported by pore water to significantly decrease the internal shearing strength of the material. This thereby creates a bulging lobe which advances with a slow, rolling motion. As these lobes spread out, drainage of the mass increases and the margins dry out, thereby lowering the overall velocity of the flow. This process causes the flow to thicken. The bulbous variety of earthflows are not that spectacular, but they are much more common than their rapid counterparts. They develop a sag at their heads and are usually derived from the slumping at the source.

Earthflows occur much more during periods of high precipitation, which saturates the ground and adds water to the slope content. Fissures develop during the movement of clay-like material creates the intrusion of water into the earthflows. Water then increases the pore-water pressure and reduces the shearing strength of the material.[2]

Goodell Creek Debris Avalanche, WA

Debris avalanche

A debris avalanche is a type of slide characterized by the chaotic movement of rocks, soil and debris mixed with water or ice (or both). They are usually triggered by the saturation of thickly vegetated slopes which results in an incoherent mixture of broken timber, smaller vegetation and other debris. [3] Debris avalanches differ from debris slides because their movement is much more rapid. This is usually a cause of lower cohesion or higher water content and commonly steeper slopes

Movement

Debris slides generally begin with large blocks that slump at the head of the slide and then break apart as they move towards the toe. This process is much slower than that of a debris avalanche. In a debris avalanche this progressive failure is very rapid and the entire mass seems to somewhat liquefy as it moves down the slope. This is caused by the combination of the excessive saturation of the material, and very steep slopes. As the mass moves down the slope it generally follows stream channels leaving behind a V-shaped scar that spreads out downhill. This differs from the more U-shaped scar of a slump. Debris avalanches can also travel well past the foot of the slope due to their tremendous speed.[4]

Sturzstrom

A sturzstrom is a rare, poorly understood type of landslide, typically with a long run-out. Often very large, these slides are unusually mobile, flowing very far over a low angle, flat, or even slightly uphill terrain. They are suspected of "riding" on a blanket of pressurized air, thus reducing friction with the current underlying surface.

See also: Slump

Shallow landslide

Block glide at Mile Marker 23 along I-99 in Blair County, Pennsylvania. Part of a hill of Devonian shale was removed to make the road, forming a dip-slope. The upper block detached along a bedding plane and is sliding down the hill, forming a jumbled pile of rock at the toe of the slide.

Landslide in which the sliding surface is located within the soil mantle or weathered bedrock (typically to a depth from few decimetres to some metres). They usually include debris slides, debris flow, and failures of road cut-slopes. Landslides occurring as single large blocks of rock moving slowly down slope are sometimes called block glides.

Shallow landslides can often happen in areas that have slopes with high permeable soils on top of low permeable bottom soils. The low permeable, bottom soils trap the water in the shallower, high permeable soils creating high water pressure in the top soils. As the top soils are filled with water and become heavy, slopes can become very unstable and slide over the low permeable bottom soils. Say there is a slope with silt and sand as its top soil and bedrock as its bottom soil. During an intense rainstorm, the bedrock will keep the rain trapped in the top soils of silt and sand. As the topsoil becomes saturated and heavy, it can start to slide over the bedrock and become a shallow landslide. R. H. Campbell did a study on shallow landslides on Santa Cruz Island California. He notes that if permeability decreases with depth, a perched water table may develop in soils at intense precipitation. When pore water pressures are sufficient to reduce effective normal stress to a critical level, failure occurs. [5]

Deep-seated landslide

Landslides in which the sliding surface is mostly deeply located below the maximum rooting depth of trees (typically to depths greater than ten meters). Deep-seated landslides usually involve deep regolith, weathered rock, and/or bedrock and include large slope failure associated with translational, rotational, or complex movement.

Causing tsunami

Landslides that occur undersea, or have impact into water, can generate tsunamis. Massive landslides can also generate megatsunamis, which are usually hundreds of metres high.

Related phenomena

Historical landslides

The Hope Slide in British Columbia, Canada.

Extraterrestrial landslides

Evidence of past landslides has been detected on many bodies in the solar system, but since most observations are made by probes that only observe for a limited time and most bodies in the solar system appear to be geologically inactive not many landslides are known to have happened in recent times. Both Venus and Mars have been subject to long-term mapping by orbiting satellites, and examples of landslides have been observed on both.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kuriakose, S.L., Sankar, G., Muraleedharan, C. (2008) History of landslide susceptibility and a chorology of landslide prone areas in the Western Ghats of Kerala, India. Environmental Geology. DOI: 10.1007/s00254-008-1431-9. URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/c1q6465428351032/
  2. ↑ Easterbrook, Don J. Surface Processes and Landforms. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1999.
  3. ↑ Easterbrook, Don J. Surface Processes and Landforms. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1999.
  4. ↑ Schuster, R.L. & Krizek, R.J. (1978). Landslides: Analysis and Control. Washington D.C.: National Academy of Sciences.
  5. ↑ Renwick,W., Brumbaugh,R. & Loeher,L. 1982. Landslide Morphology and Processes on Santa Cruz Island California. Geografiska Annaler. Series A, Physical Geography, Vol. 64, No. 3/4, pp. 149-159
  6. ↑ Dingle,R.V. 1977. The anatomy of a large submarine slump on a sheared continental margin (SE Africa). Journal of Geological Society London, 134, 293-310.
  7. ↑ Glissement de terrain à Saint-Jean-Vianney | Les Archives de Radio-Canada

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