Published In

Geophysical Research Letters

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-2013

Subjects

Landslides -- France -- Alpes-Maritimes, Geomorphology, Landslides -- Rheology, Remote sensing

Abstract

Quantifying the velocity, volume, and rheology of deep, slow-moving landslides is essential for hazard prediction and understanding landscape evolution, but existing field-based methods are difficult or impossible to implement at remote sites. Here we present a novel and widely applicable method for constraining landslide 3-D deformation and thickness by inverting surface change data from repeat stereo imagery. Our analysis of La Clapiere, an approximately 1 km (super 2) bedrock landslide, reveals a concave-up failure surface with considerable roughness over length scales of tens of meters. Calibrating the thickness model with independent, local thickness measurements, we find a maximum thickness of 163 m and a rheology consistent with distributed deformation of the highly fractured landslide material, rather than sliding of an intact, rigid block. The technique is generally applicable to any mass movements that can be monitored by active or historic remote sensing

Description

This is the publisher's final PDF. Originally published in Geophysical Research Letters (http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/grl.50828) and is copyrighted by American Geophysical Union (http://www.agu.org/).

* At the time of publication Adam M. Booth was affiliated with California Institute of Technology

DOI

0094-8276/13/10.1002/grl.50828

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/14498

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