Chapter 16: Unsafe Ground-Landslides and Other Mass

Movements

Introduction:
 Mass movement (or mass wasting) is the downslope motion of rock, regolith
(soil, sediment, and debris), snow, and ice.
o Driven by gravity acting on any sloping surface
o Important component of rock cycle

Mudflow in Yungay, Peru:

 On May 31, 1970 - earthquake broke a huge mass of ice off the glacier on
Nevado Huascarán
 Ice rushed downhill, fragmented, and tore up boulders and soil
o Ice melted and created a slurry of mud carrying huge boulders.
 The resulting mudflow buried Yungay, Peru, entombing 18,000 people.

Types of Mass Movements:

 1) Solifluction + Creep (Slowest)
 2) Slumping
 3) Lahars and Mudflows
 4) Debris Flows
 5) Rockfalls and Rockslides (Fastest)

1) Creep: - slowest mass movement

 Mechanism:
o Creep is the slow downhill movement of regolith due to seasonal
expansion and contraction of regolith.
o Wetting and drying and freezing and thawing are contributing factors.
o Creep operates as grains are moved perpendicular to the slope as regolith
expands and vertically downward by gravity as regolith contracts.
 Evidence: evident from tilting of landscape features
Solifluction: slow downhill movement of tundra. Melted permafrost slowly flows over
deeper frozen soil.
 Process:
 o Permafrost terrains
o Seasonally melted active layer over permafrost slowly flows over deeper
frozen soil
o Have to have unconsolidated soil – mobile material o see movement
Rock Glaciers
 Rock glaciers are mixtures of rock fragments in a matrix of ice.
 They only exist above the elevation of perennial freezing
 Below the freezing elevation, rock glaciers are relic and no longer moving.
 Less about melting and freezing, more about plastic behavior of ice matrix

2) Slumping:
 Slumping is mass movement by sliding of regolith as
coherent block
 Slip occurs along a spoon-shaped “failure surface.”
o Rotational slumping occurs along curved failure surface
 Body of the slump may be further subdivided into discrete blocks, each bounded
by faults.
 Variety of sizes and have highly variable rates of motion
 Have characteristics:
o Head scarp = exposed upper part of the failure surface
o Bulging toe = where material piles up
 Ex: Ensenada, Baja California in 2013
 Head scarp: Incipient slump along a highway in Utah displaying a developing
head scarp.
o Slump will continue to develop unless remedial stabilization is applied
 Cut Bank Slumping:
o Exposed slump failure surface along a river in Costa Rica
o Slump blocks that fall into water are often removed quickly by erosion
o Slumping is a common process along the outer (cut bank) bend of a
meandering river.

3) Mudflows, Debris Flows, Lahars:

 These mass movements are faster with more water or steeper slope
 They follow river channels down a valley and spread out into a broad lobe when
they reach the base of the slope
o Able to carry huge boulders, houses, and cars and are extremely
dangerous to people.
Effect of Water:
 Unsaturated conditions: surface tension holds unconsolidated material together

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  Saturated soils: reduces friction between grains and acts by buoying up the
weight of slope material, reduces shear strength and leads to failure
o More water = more saturated

Marine Sediments + Quick Clays

 These sensitive glacial clays are deposited in marine waters during deglaciation.
 Have high water content and high salinity
o causes electrostatic interaction between ions and clay particles creating
metastable configuration
 with uplift + exposure, the saline porewater becomes freshened with circulation of
groundwater = destabilize clay structure
 triggering events such as earthquakes and down-cutting erosion by rivers and
streams can lead to sudden liquefaction and flow of the material.
 Characteristics: clay size sediments, Leda sensitive clay, marine (saline
porewater), Rissa slide – 1978
 Ex: Gatineau: River downcutting into Champlain Sea sediments
o Landslides in Leda clay of the Champlain sea
o In Nicolet Quebec + Lemieux, Ontario
o St-Jean-Vianney, Quebec in 1971 – 31 deaths, 40 houses destroyed
Mudflow:
 Common in tropical settings with deep weathering of soils + abundant rainfall
o Especially tropical storms + hurricanes
o Ex: Oso, WA; March 22nd, 2014
Lahars:
 Volcanic ash from recent or ongoing eruptions mixes with water from heavy rains
or melted glacial ice.
 Ex: Case history of Lahar – Nevado del Ruiz Volcano in the Colombian Andes
o The eruption melted some of the mountain’s snowcap
o Melt water mixed with ash and raced down river valleys
o Armero was buried, killing 20,000 residents in their sleep
o The volcano erupted the night of November 13, 1985.
4) Rock Debris Slide:
 Movement down the failure surface is sudden and deadly
 Slide debris can move at 300 km per hour on a cushion of air.
 Fastest moving rockslides, sudden and deadly
 Not water that facilitates = but cushion of AIR
 Ex: Blackhawk event, California, 17,000 years ago
o huge rock fall in San Bernardino Mountains flowed out into Mojave Desert
– flowed 7.5 times farther than fell, speed estimated up to 120 km/hr

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  Ex: Frank slide (Alberta) – 1903
o A rock avalanche (30 M m3) slid off the eastern face of Turtle Mountain,
covering 3 km in under 2 minutes.
 Boulders and debris moved on a cushion of air
o The section that broke was 1,000 metres wide, 425 metres high and 150
metres deep
 traveled at a speed of about 110 kph and covered 3 km 2 to a depth
of 14 m
 Enough material to build a 6 m tall wall from Vancouver to Halifax.
o Unstable anticline structure with increasing water infiltration (and coal
mining) as a trigger.
o The avalanche buried the outskirts of the mining town of Frank
 90 people died, making this the deadliest natural disaster in North
America.
 Ex: Fraser Canyon, BC, 2008
o Changed river + interfered with salmon runs
 Ex: Hope slide, SW BC – 1965
o Canada’s largest rock avalanche in the historic period, 46 M m 3 of rock
debris avalanched down a the side of a mountain forming a fan up to 80 m
thick and 3 km wide
o Four people driving on the Hope-Princeton Highway were killed. There is
no known triggering event for this slide.

Avalanches:
 Avalanche: a turbulent cloud of debris and air
 Snow avalanche = thick mass of over steepened snow that detaches from a
mountain peak
 Avalanches are usually lethal to people caught in the way
 Moves downhill with enormous force sufficient to flatten forests and buildings
 Tend to reoccur in clearly defined avalanche chutes that are devoid of trees
 Wet vs Dry Avalanches:
o Wet avalanches
 Behave like a viscous slurry, hugging the slope and entraining little
air
 Move relatively slowly (usually <30 km per hour).
o Dry avalanches
 Move cold, powdery snow
 Move above the ground surface on a layer of pressurized air
 Move rapidly (up to 250 km per hour).

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5) Rockfalls + debris falls:
 Free falling rock debris from unstable terrain
 Create a talus pile at the foot of the cliff or slope
 Rockfalls and debris falls vertical freefall of mass
 Bedrock or regolith falls rapidly downward
 When blocks impact, they fragment and continue moving.

Gigantic Submarine Mass Movements:

 important process for shaping land in tectonic settings
 Mass movements are tied to catastrophic tsunamis from the geologic past
 Many slumps have been mapped on the sea floor surrounding the Hawaiian
Islands
o The steep cliffs (above) are the head scarps of huge slumps.
 Ex: Storegga Slide
o One of the largest submarine landslides
o Occurred just of the Norwegian coast several thousand years
ago
o Tsunami deposits from the slide are shown as red dots.

Initiating Mass Movements:

 Why slopes fail: loose ground, groundwater pressure, steep slope, planes of
weakness, sinkholes
 Mass movements occur when Earth materials are subjected to topographic
(slope) forces and are weakened or loosened from their attachments
 Mass movement occurs on material that has been weakened by fragmentation
and weathering
o Chemical and physical weathering produce regolith
o Surface material is much weaker than solid crustal rock.
Sinkholes:
 caves occur in limestone from dissolution from carbonic acid in groundwater from
recharge through soils
o dissolution of calcite by carbonic acid – produced in soil
o CaCO3 + H2CO3  Ca+2 + 2HCO3–
 Catastrophic subsidence: when…
o A) groundwater levels drop
o B) roofs collapse, forming sinkholes

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Factors Reducing Slope Strength:
 Relief – steep terrain
 Material – unconsolidated sediments, weathered or fractured bedrock
 Groundwater – porewater pressure reduces grain to grain contact
 Deforesting – trees dewater sediments, roots reinforce sediments
 Climate – rainfall
Triggers for Mass Movements:
 Seismic events – tectonic or human induced
 Heavy rain
 Construction, excavation projects creating slope instability
 River undercutting banks

Landslide Potential Mapping:

 Uses computer modeling to identify areas of potential risk that may not show
obvious signs of mass movement.
 It assesses multiple factors:
o Slope steepness
o Strength of substrate
o Hydrology – drainage + climate
o Seismicity
o Degree of water saturation
o Orientation of planar features
o Bedding
o Joints
o Foliation
o Vegetation cover
o Heavy rain potential
o Undercutting potential
o Earthquake probability

Preventing Mass Movements:

 1) Revegetation:
o Roots stabilize the potential failure plane
o Revegetation has two positive effects
 A) it removes water by evapotranspiration
 B) the roots help to bind and anchor regolith

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  2) Regrading:
o Terrace steps – remove load and catch debris
o Redistributing a slope by terracing removes some of the mass loading and
catches debris.
 3) Reducing Undercutting:
o Filled channel (stream had been undercutting cliff)
o Diverted new channel (stream is away from cliff)
o Undercutting – riprap absorbs wave energy + slows undercutting
 4) Stabilizing faces:
o Shotcrete: concrete polymer to stabilize surface, often with drainage
lateral drilled into the face
o Shotcrete and Retaining walls = barriers that pin the base and trap rock.
Fencing or coating can be used to cover an outcrop that has loose rocks.
o Engineered structures—safety structures can be built to improve slope
stability or to reduce movement hazards
 5) Rock bolts, mesh
o Holding rocks in place with wire mesh nets
o Using fence to catch fallen rocks
o Rock staples are rods drilled into rock to hold loose facing
o Avalanche sheds are structures that shunt avalanche snow.
 6) Dewatering + depressurization
o Steering flow by building walls (gabions) and digging channels
o Removing rock and decreasing slope angle