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Investigation and characteristic analysis of a high-position rockslide avalanche in Fangshan District, Beijing, China

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Abstract

At 8:30 a.m., on August 11, 2018, a high-position rockslide avalanche was reported in Da’anshan village, Fangshan district, Beijing, China. The landslide destroyed the road below and did not cause any casualties due to the timely detection of warning signs. The displaced landslide material traveled a horizontal distance of about 260 m with a vertical drop of about 176 m and stopped at 613.6 m asl. According to videos and survey data, the Da’anshan rockslide initiated at a high position and transformed into a pipeline-type debris avalanche along the gully to the east. It scraped the surface layer of the strongly weathered rock formation and also transformed into a diffuse-type debris flow along the slope surface. Finally, it accumulated at the bottom of the river valley and presented a typical disaster mode of rapid runout. Based on this, the Archard erosion model was embedded in the Engineering Discrete Element Method (EDEM) to perform back analysis and simulate the three-stage kinematic processes of sliding, shear-shoveling, and flow accumulation to quantify the scraping volume and position. After initiation at a high-level position, the rockslide moved downward along the valley for approximately 10 s with a maximum velocity of 26.1 m/s. The final volume of the accumulation obtained from the simulation was ~24,000 m3, which is close to the total volume obtained from the field investigations. This study provides a methodological reference for future simulation analysis of high-position rockslide avalanches.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Beijing Institute of Geology and China Academy of Safety Science & Technology for supplying some basic data. Besides, we are also grateful to the editor-in-chief of Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment, Resat Ulusay, for reconsidering the revised manuscript. Finally, the authors would like to thank the reviewers of this manuscript for their good suggestions and useful comments.

Funding

Financial support was provided by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFC1505404), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41731287), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 8194062), and Geological Disaster Detailed Investigation Project of China Geological Survey (Grant No. DD20190637).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. China Institute of Geo-Environment Monitoring, China Geological Survey, Beijing, China

    Wenpei Wang, Yueping Yin, Yunjie Wei, Sainan Zhu & Junfeng Li

  2. Institute of Geomechanics, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing, China

    Huajun Meng

  3. Chang’an University, Xi’an, China

    Ruixin Zhao

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  1. Wenpei Wang
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Correspondence to Yueping Yin.

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Wang, W., Yin, Y., Wei, Y. et al. Investigation and characteristic analysis of a high-position rockslide avalanche in Fangshan District, Beijing, China. Bull Eng Geol Environ 80, 2069–2084 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-020-02098-x

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