Significance of rockfall magnitude and carbonate dissolution for rock slope erosion and geomorphic work on Alpine limestone cliffs (Reintal, German Alps)

Krautblatter, Michael; Möser, Michael; Schrott, Lothar; Wolf, J.; Morche, David

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2012.04.007

Cited by 76 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…Our data complement work that has focused on the coupling of rockfall to other processes in the sediment cascade of mountainous landscapes (e.g. Krautblatter et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…Despite their small volumes (10 −1 -10 3 m 3 ) in comparison with other mass wasting processes, such as rock avalanches (10 2 -10 5 m 3 ) and rockslides (> 10 6 m 3 ) (Krautblatter et al, 2012), rockfalls can pose a significant hazard, due to their rapid evolution, high velocity and impact energy, and proximity to infrastructure. Thus, precise information on released volume, timing, location, dynamics and triggers is essential for understanding the underlying mechanisms, improving process-based models, and building robust mitigation and early warning systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seismic monitoring of small alpine rockfalls – validity, precision and limitations

Dietze

Mohadjer²,

Turowski

et al. 2017

Earth Surf. Dynam.

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Abstract. Rockfall in deglaciated mountain valleys is perhaps the most important post-glacial geomorphic process for determining the rates and patterns of valley wall erosion. Furthermore, rockfall poses a significant hazard to inhabitants and motivates monitoring efforts in populated areas. Traditional rockfall detection methods, such as aerial photography and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data evaluation, provide constraints on the location and released volume of rock but have limitations due to significant time lags or integration times between surveys, and deliver limited information on rockfall triggering mechanisms and the dynamics of individual events. Environmental seismology, the study of seismic signals emitted by processes at the Earth's surface, provides a complementary solution to these shortcomings. However, this approach is predominantly limited by the strength of the signals emitted by a source and their transformation and attenuation towards receivers. To test the ability of seismic methods to identify and locate small rockfalls, and to characterise their dynamics, we surveyed a 2.16 km 2 large, near-vertical cliff section of the Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Swiss Alps with a TLS device and six broadband seismometers. During 37 days in autumn 2014, 10 TLS-detected rockfalls with volumes ranging from 0.053 ± 0.004 to 2.338 ± 0.085 m 3 were independently detected and located by the seismic approach, with a deviation of 81 +59 −29 m (about 7 % of the average inter-station distance of the seismometer network). Further potential rockfalls were detected outside the TLS-surveyed cliff area. The onset of individual events can be determined within a few milliseconds, and their dynamics can be resolved into distinct phases, such as detachment, free fall, intermittent impact, fragmentation, arrival at the talus slope and subsequent slope activity. The small rockfall volumes in this area require significant supervision during data processing: 2175 initially picked potential events reduced to 511 potential events after applying automatic rejection criteria. The 511 events needed to be inspected manually to reveal 19 short earthquakes and 37 potential rockfalls, including the 10 TLS-detected events. Rockfall volume does not show a relationship with released seismic energy or peak amplitude at this spatial scale due to the dominance of other, process-inherent factors, such as fall height, degree of fragmentation, and subsequent talus slope activity. The combination of TLS and environmental seismology provides, despite the significant amount of manual data processing, a detailed validation of seismic detection of small volume rockfalls, and revealed unprecedented temporal, spatial and geometric details about rockfalls in steep mountainous terrain.Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

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“…Our data complement work that has focused on the coupling of rockfall to other processes in the sediment cascade of mountainous landscapes (e.g. Krautblatter et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seismic monitoring of small alpine rockfalls – validity, precision and limitations

Dietze

Mohadjer²,

Turowski

et al. 2017

Earth Surf. Dynam.

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“…They are usually governed by shortterm weather conditions like freeze-thaw events or precipitation (Sass, 2005;Krautblatter et al, 2012). (2) Major rockfalls (bergsturz) are too rare to be adequately represented in a dataset covering ca.…”

Section: Rockfalls and Their Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is climate change causing increased rockfall frequency in Austria?

Sass¹,

Oberlechner

2012

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Potentially, increasing rockfall hazards triggered by climate change are a major concern expressed both in scientific and non-scientific media. An existing rockfall inventory for Austria including 252 events from ca. 1900 to 2010, mainly from non-permafrost areas, was analysed. The correlation of events with temperatures is very weak and no increase of rockfall frequency during warmer periods was observed. The peak of rockfall activity is in spring, whereas in recent decades a secondary summer maximum appeared in the records. A possible reason for this shift is reduced rockfall activity in spring due to warmer winters. We conclude that a premature warning of increasing rockfall hazard, especially below the permafrost limit, is not supported by the existing data.

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“…Block production can be attributed to several processes, such as crack propagation and dissolution of solids (Wieczorek, 1996;Krautblatter et al, 2012;Stock et al, 2013), and usually acts over several months to millions of years. The release mechanism essentially causes a decrease in the stabilising forces and/or an increase in stress until material fails and the rock mass is mobilised.…”

Section: Rockfall Triggersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a consequence, precise constraints on timing, location and triggers are hard to come by. There are many established approaches to detect rockfall activity spatially, for example surveys of talus slopes, dendrometric and lichenometric approaches (Matsuoka and Sakai, 1999;Stoffel et al, 2005;Krautblatter et al, 2012), and more recently image-based mapping and terrestrial and airborne laser scanning (Stock et al, 2011;Strunden et al, 2014;D'Amato et al, 2016). The temporal information delivered by these methods is not very precise as it is bound to the survey lapse times, which are typically on the order of weeks to years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal patterns, triggers and anatomies of seismically detected rockfalls

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Rockfalls are a ubiquitous geomorphic process and a natural hazard in steep landscapes across the globe. Seismic monitoring can provide precise information on the timing, location and event anatomy of rockfalls, which are parameters that are otherwise hard to constrain. By pairing data from 49 seismically detected rockfalls in the Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Swiss Alps with auxiliary meteorologic and seismic data of potential triggers during autumn 2014 and spring 2015, we are able to (i) analyse the evolution of single rockfalls and their common properties, (ii) identify spatial changes in activity hotspots (iii) and explore temporal activity patterns on different scales ranging from months to minutes to quantify relevant trigger mechanisms. Seismic data allow for the classification of rockfall activity into two distinct phenomenological types. The signals can be used to discern multiple rock mass releases from the same spot, identify rockfalls that trigger further rockfalls and resolve modes of subsequent talus slope activity. In contrast to findings based on discontinuous methods with integration times of several months, rockfall in the monitored limestone cliff is not spatially uniform but shows a systematic downward shift of a rock mass release zone following an exponential law, most likely driven by a continuously lowering water table. Freeze-thaw transitions, approximated at first order from air temperature time series, account for only 5 out of the 49 rockfalls, whereas 19 rockfalls were triggered by rainfall events with a peak lag time of 1 h. Another 17 rockfalls were triggered by diurnal temperature changes and occurred during the coldest hours of the day and during the highest temperature change rates. This study is thus the first to show direct links between proposed rockfall triggers and the spatiotemporal distribution of rockfalls under natural conditions; it extends existing models by providing seismic observations of the rockfall process prior to the first rock mass impacts.

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Significance of rockfall magnitude and carbonate dissolution for rock slope erosion and geomorphic work on Alpine limestone cliffs (Reintal, German Alps)

Cited by 76 publications

References 93 publications

Seismic monitoring of small alpine rockfalls – validity, precision and limitations

Seismic monitoring of small alpine rockfalls – validity, precision and limitations

Is climate change causing increased rockfall frequency in Austria?

Spatiotemporal patterns, triggers and anatomies of seismically detected rockfalls

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