“…A particular form of shear band propagation, which has received considerable attention (Locat et al 2011(Locat et al , 2013Quinn et al 2011Quinn et al , 2012Dey et al 2015), is a progressive spreading failure accompanied by an uphill growth of the shear band in subaerial landslides driven by the removal of the downslope support. In the past few years a number of novel analytical, numerical, and experimental tools have been developed and validated (Viesca and Rice 2012;Puzrin et al 2015Puzrin et al , 2016aPuzrin et al , 2016bGermanovich et al 2016;Zhang et al 2015Zhang et al , 2016, extending the SBP approach to account for actual nonlinear slope geometries, different types of triggers (excess pore-water pressures, seismic loading), dynamic propagation effects, and retrogressive spreading above the failed slab in submarine landslides. This paper takes the SBP approach further, towards a unified treatment of various geomorphological features, by exploring what happens at the bottom of the failed slab in the stable bottom zone of the slope (blue in Fig.…”