Earthflow sediment production and Holocene sediment record in a large Apennine catchment

Simoni, Alessandro; Ponza, Alessio; Picotti, Vincenzo; Berti, Matteo; Dinelli, Enrico

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2012.12.006

Cited by 52 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 36 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Stream discharge depends on climate, with warmer and colder periods generally being wetter and drier, respectively (Fairchild and Baker, 2012). Apenninic hillslopes during dry and cold periods produced abundant regolith that is available for remobilization at the end of those periods, when increasing rainfall can rework these sediments down to the main channels, eventually depositing them at the lower reaches of the trunk river (Simoni et al, 2013). These high bedload discharge periods allow the valley to widen by lateral erosion, carving strath terraces and aggrading terrace fills.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gypsum caves as indicators of climate-driven river incision and aggradation in a rapidly uplifting region

Columbu¹,

Waele²,

Forti³

et al. 2015

Geology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Detailed geomorphological analysis has revealed that subhorizontal gypsum caves in the Northern Apennines (Italy) cut across bedding planes. These cave levels formed during cold periods with stable river beds, and are coeval with fluvial terraces of rivers that flow perpendicular to the strike of bedding in gypsum monoclines. When rivers entrench, renewed cave formation occurs very rapidly, resulting in the formation of a lower level. River aggradation causes cave alluviation and upward dissolution (paragenesis) in passages nearest to the river beds. The U-Th dating of calcite speleothems provides a minimum age for the formation of the cave passage in which they grew, which in turn provides age control on cave levels. The ages of all speleothems coincide with warmer and wetter periods when CO 2 availability in the soils covering these gypsum areas was greater. This climate-driven speleogenetic model of epigenic gypsum caves in moderately to rapidly uplifting areas in temperate regions might be generally applicable to karst systems in different geological and climatic conditions.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gypsum caves as indicators of climate-driven river incision and aggradation in a rapidly uplifting region

Columbu¹,

Waele²,

Forti³

et al. 2015

Geology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These landslides display distinct seasonal velocity changes, with periods of increased velocity that correspond to periods of elevated porewater pressures. Numerous other landslides in this region (31,32), and elsewhere that similar environmental conditions (i.e., tectonics, lithology, and climate) prevail, display similar displacement patterns and are likely driven by comparable stress perturbations (3,33,34).…”

Section: [4]mentioning

confidence: 93%

Rate-weakening friction characterizes both slow sliding and catastrophic failure of landslides

Handwerger

Rempel

Skarbek

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Catastrophic landslides cause billions of dollars in damages and claim thousands of lives annually, whereas slow-moving landslides with negligible inertia dominate sediment transport on many weathered hillslopes. Surprisingly, both failure modes are displayed by nearby landslides (and individual landslides in different years) subjected to almost identical environmental conditions. Such observations have motivated the search for mechanisms that can cause slow-moving landslides to transition via runaway acceleration to catastrophic failure. A similarly diverse range of sliding behavior, including earthquakes and slow-slip events, occurs along tectonic faults. Our understanding of these phenomena has benefitted from mechanical treatments that rely upon key ingredients that are notably absent from previous landslide descriptions. Here, we describe landslide motion using a rate-and state-dependent frictional model that incorporates a nonlocal stress balance to account for the elastic response to gradients in slip. Our idealized, one-dimensional model reproduces both the displacement patterns observed in slowmoving landslides and the acceleration toward failure exhibited by catastrophic events. Catastrophic failure occurs only when the slip surface is characterized by rate-weakening friction and its lateral dimensions exceed a critical nucleation length h * that is shorter for higher effective stresses. However, landslides that are extensive enough to fall within this regime can nevertheless slide slowly for months or years before catastrophic failure. Our results suggest that the diversity of slip behavior observed during landslides can be described with a single model adapted from standard fault mechanics treatments.landslides | slope failure | rate and state friction | pore-water pressure | effective stress L aboratory experiments (1, 2) and numerical models (3,4) suggest that for slow-moving landslides that persist over periods of years to centuries (5) the shear strength that resists motion increases with slip rate-a characteristic referred to as rate strengthening-whereas the opposite is true for landslides that exhibit runaway acceleration and catastrophic failure. Two primary mechanisms are invoked frequently to describe the former rate-strengthening behavior. The first characterizes landslide materials as viscoplastic (i.e., Bingham-plastic), so that an increase in velocity corresponds with an increase in strain rate and viscous resistance. These models are able to reproduce field-based measurements of velocity for seasonally active slow-moving landslides (3). However, this constitutive behavior contradicts measurements that suggest landslide displacement is dominated by frictional sliding along basal and lateral faults (6); furthermore, such rheological models are unable to capture the transition from slow sliding to catastrophic failure. The second modeling approach applies Coulomb friction and invokes shear-zone dilatancy to regulate porewater pressure changes so that sliding increases strength because of ...

show abstract

“…Thus, these landslides often are referred to as earthflows as described in the classification system of Hungr et al (2001). Earthflows occur in many landscapes worldwide and locally dominate hillslope denudation and sediment transport (e.g., Bovis & Jones, 1992;Giordan et al, 2013;Keefer & Johnson, 1983;Kelsey, 1978;Mackey & Roering, 2011;Roering et al, 2009;Simoni et al, 2013). Although flow is implied by their name, ample evidence (e.g., Corominas et al, 2005;Fleming & Johnson, 1989;Keefer & Johnson, 1983;Schulz et al, 2009;Skempton et al, 1989) reveals that nearly all of their movement occurs by sliding along bounding shear zones, as with landslides, in general (e.g., Skempton, 1985;Terzaghi, 1950).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Landslides present significant hazards to human safety and the built environment, causing billions of dollars in damages (Spiker & Gori, 2003) and thousands of casualties (Kirschbaum et al, 2010;Petley, 2012) on an annual basis worldwide. Landslides also denude hillslopes and mobilize sediment that eventually impacts surface water bodies; in many regions, landslides are the primary agent of geomorphic change (Mackey & Roering, 2011;Roering et al, 2009;Schmidt & Montgomery, 1995;Simoni et al, 2013). The hazards that landslides present and their control on landscape change are largely dictated by the timing of their occurrence, their size, and the duration, speed, and total amount of their movement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clayey Landslide Initiation and Acceleration Strongly Modulated by Soil Swelling

Schulz

Smith

Wang

et al. 2018

Geophysical Research Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Largely unknown mechanisms restrain motion of clay‐rich, slow‐moving landslides that are widespread worldwide and rarely accelerate catastrophically. We studied a clayey, slow‐moving landslide typical of thousands in Northern California, USA, to decipher hydrologic‐mechanical interactions that modulate landslide dynamics. Similar to some other studies, observed pore‐water pressures correlated poorly with landslide reactivation and speed. In situ and laboratory measurements strongly suggested that variable pressure along the landslide's lateral shear boundaries resulting from seasonal soil expansion and contraction modulated its reactivation and speed. Slope‐stability modeling suggested that the landslide's observed behavior could be predicted by including transient swell pressure as a resistance term, whereas modeling considering only transient hydrologic conditions predicted movement five to six months prior to when it was observed. All clayey soils swell to some degree; hence, our findings suggest that swell pressure likely modulates motion of many landslides and should be considered to improve forecasts of clayey landslide initiation and mobility.

show abstract

Earthflow sediment production and Holocene sediment record in a large Apennine catchment

Cited by 52 publications

References 36 publications

Gypsum caves as indicators of climate-driven river incision and aggradation in a rapidly uplifting region

Gypsum caves as indicators of climate-driven river incision and aggradation in a rapidly uplifting region

Rate-weakening friction characterizes both slow sliding and catastrophic failure of landslides

Clayey Landslide Initiation and Acceleration Strongly Modulated by Soil Swelling

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About