A review of catastrophic drainage of moraine-dammed lakes in British Columbia

Clague, John J.; Evans, Stephen G.

doi:10.1016/s0277-3791(00)00090-1

Cited by 517 publications

(411 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Large rock or ice avalanches can be destructive and far reaching, especially when they impact lakes and trigger large outburst floods (Clague & Evans 2000;Huggel et al 2004;Kääb et al 2005;Haeberli & Hohmann 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent and future warm extreme events and high-mountain slope stability

Huggel

Salzmann

Allen

et al. 2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

164

123

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The number of large slope failures in some high-mountain regions such as the European Alps has increased during the past two to three decades. There is concern that recent climate change is driving this increase in slope failures, thus possibly further exacerbating the hazard in the future. Although the effects of a gradual temperature rise on glaciers and permafrost have been extensively studied, the impacts of short-term, unusually warm temperature increases on slope stability in high mountains remain largely unexplored.We describe several large slope failures in rock and ice in recent years in Alaska, New Zealand and the European Alps, and analyse weather patterns in the days and weeks before the failures. Although we did not find one general temperature pattern, all the failures were preceded by unusually warm periods; some happened immediately after temperatures suddenly dropped to freezing.We assessed the frequency of warm extremes in the future by analysing eight regional climate models from the recently completed European Union programme ENSEMBLES for the central Swiss Alps. The models show an increase in the higher frequency of high-temperature events for the period 2001-2050 compared with a 1951-2000 reference period. Warm events lasting 5, 10 and 30 days are projected to increase by about 1.5-4 times by 2050 and in some models by up to 10 times.Warm extremes can trigger large landslides in temperature-sensitive high mountains by enhancing the production of water by melt of snow and ice, and by rapid thaw. Although these processes reduce slope strength, they must be considered within the local geological, glaciological and topographic context of a slope.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent and future warm extreme events and high-mountain slope stability

Huggel

Salzmann

Allen

et al. 2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

164

123

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“…Comparison with other documented moraine-dam failures Geomorphological reworking of valley-floors downstream of moraine-dammed lakes by GLOFs has been widely documented (Clague and Evans, 2000;Richardson and Reynolds, 2000;Cenderelli and Wohl, 2003;Korup and Tweed, 2007;Osti and Egashira, 2009;Worni et al, 2012). In many instances, distinct alluvial debris-fans similar to that observed beneath the main breach at Chukhung are located immediately downstream of moraine (Vuichard and Zimmerman, 1987;Evans and Clague, 1994;Kershaw et al, 2005) and landslide dambreaches (Dunning et al, 2006).…”

Section: Discussion and Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alternatively, a moraine-dammed lake may develop in the proglacial area between a terminal moraine and a receding glacier terminus as glacial meltwater ponds in the newly deglaciated basin. However, this mode of lake formation requires that the moraine is stable enough to resist seepage-or piping-induced failure, and to maintain a spillway on the dam crest (Costa and Schuster, 1988;Clague and Evans, 2000;Korup and Tweed, 2007).…”

Section: Glaciological and Hydrological Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given a triggering event, moraine-breaching may result in a sudden and rapid release of significant volumes of water and sediment (Lliboutry et al, 1977;Vuichard and Zimmerman, 1987;Costa and Schuster, 1988;Evans and Clague, 1994;Walder and Driedger, 1994;Watanabe and Rothacher, 1996;Clague and Evans, 2000;Cenderelli and Wohl, 2001;Kattelmann, 2003;Xin et al, 2008;Osti et al, 2013;Westoby et al, 2014). Such Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) represent a highmagnitude and low-frequency catastrophic phenomenon, and are capable of performing significant geomorphological reworking of moraine, in-channel and overbank environments (Costa and Schuster, 1988;Cenderelli and Wohl, 2003;Kershaw et al, 2005;Breien et al, 2008;Worni et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reconstructing historic Glacial Lake Outburst Floods through numerical modelling and geomorphological assessment: Extreme events in the Himalaya

Westoby

Glasser

Hambrey

et al. 2014

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Recession of high-mountain glaciers in response to climatic change frequently results in the development of morainedammed glacial lakes. Moraine dam failure is often accompanied by the release of large volumes of water and sediment, termed a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF). Chukhung Glacier is a small (~3 km 2 ) receding valley glacier in Mt. Everest (Sagarmatha) National Park, Nepal. Unlike many Himalayan glaciers, which possess a thick mantle of supraglacial debris, its surface is relatively clean. The glacier terminus has receded 1.3 km from its maximum Holocene position, and in doing so provided the space for an icecontact moraine-dammed lake to develop. The lake had a maximum volume of 5.5 × 10 5 m 3 and drained as a result of breaching of the terminal moraine. An estimated 1.3 × 10 5 m 3 of material was removed from the terminal moraine during breach development. Numerical dam-breach modelling, implemented within a Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) framework, was used to investigate a range of moraine-dam failure scenarios. Reconstructed outflow peak discharges, including failure via overtopping and piping mechanisms, are in the range 146-2200 m 3 s -1 . Results from two-dimensional hydrodynamic GLOF modelling indicate that maximum local flow depths may have exceeded 9 m, with maximum flow velocities exceeding 20 m s -1 within 700 m of the breach. The floodwaters mobilised a significant amount of material, sourced mostly from the expanding breach, forming a 300 m long and 100 m wide debris fan originating at the breach exit. moraine-dam. These results also suggest that inundation of the entire floodplain may have been achieved within ten minutes of initial breach development, suggesting that debris fan development was rapid. We discuss the key glaciological and geomorphological factors that have determined the evolution of a hazardous moraine-dammed lake complex and the subsequent generation of a GLOF and its geomorphological impact.

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“…Outburst floods are a sudden release of water and sediment with discharges that are several orders of magnitude greater than perennial flows (Costa and Schuster, 1988;Clague and Evans, 2000). Jö kulhlaups and lahars are two types of outburst flood that commonly comprise glacial meltwater and volcaniclastic sediment.…”

Section: Introduction and Rationalementioning

confidence: 99%

GPR-Derived Sedimentary Architecture and Stratigraphy of Outburst Flood Sedimentation Within a Bedrock Valley System, Hraundalur, Iceland

Carrivick

Pringle

Russell

et al. 2007

JEEG

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Jö kulhlaups and lahars are both types of outburst flood that commonly comprise a glacial meltwater and volcaniclastic sediment mix, and have discharges that are typically several orders of magnitude greater than perennial flows. Both types thus constitute a serious threat to life, property and infrastructure but are too powerful and too short-lived for direct measurements of flow characteristics to be made. Consequently a variety of indirect methods have been used to reconstruct flow properties, processes and mechanisms. Unfortunately, limited observations of sedimentary architecture and stratigraphic relationships are hampering our ability to discriminate fluvial magnitude-frequency regimes and fluvial styles of deposition, particularly those produced by rapidly-varied flows. This paper therefore uses Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to obtain quantitative data on subsurface sedimentary character of high-magnitude outburst flood sediments, including architecture and stratigraphy, from a bedrock-valley system in north-central Iceland. Basement pillow lava and subaerial lava flows are characterised by chaotic and hummocky GPR reflectors with a lack of coherent structure. They also feature an upper rough surface as evidenced by concentration of hyperbolae point sources. Unconsolidated sedimentary units are interpreted due to occur where laterally-persistent horizontal and sub horizontal reflectors occur. Deposition produced spatially diverse sediments due to rapidlyvaried flow conditions. Observations include prograding and backfilling architecture, intercalated slope material and fluvial sediments, and multiphase sedimentary deposition. We suggest that these outburst flood sediments were initially deposited by traction load of coarsegrained material on prograding bedforms, and subsequently by drop-out from suspension of finer-grained material. The latter phase produced laterally extensive tabular sedimentary architectures that in-filled pre-existing topography and masked the complexity of bedrock forms beneath. Existing qualitative concepts of high-magnitude fluvial deposition within a topographically confined bedrock channel are therefore now refined with quantitative data on sediment architecture and thus on flow regimes.

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A review of catastrophic drainage of moraine-dammed lakes in British Columbia

Cited by 517 publications

References 35 publications

Recent and future warm extreme events and high-mountain slope stability

Recent and future warm extreme events and high-mountain slope stability

Reconstructing historic Glacial Lake Outburst Floods through numerical modelling and geomorphological assessment: Extreme events in the Himalaya

GPR-Derived Sedimentary Architecture and Stratigraphy of Outburst Flood Sedimentation Within a Bedrock Valley System, Hraundalur, Iceland

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