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Landslides in the Tandayapa Valley, northern Andes, Ecuador: implications for landform development in humid and tectonically active mountain ranges

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Abstract

Landslides are common throughout the Ecuadorian Andes, but their causal and controlling factors and their roles in landform development have not yet been systematically investigated. This paper reports observations and hypotheses arising from a reconnaissance study of the Tandayapa Valley in the Cordillera Occidental, approximately 30 km west of Quito. This study area is characterised by high local relief (ca. 800 m) associated with dissected mountainous terrain, high annual rainfall (>2,000 mm), and secondary-succession wet montane ‘cloud forest’. Regolith cover is extremely thin on the very steep (45 to >60°) upper main valley slopes, but there are thick accumulations of tephra on the slope crests and ridgetops. These deposits show periods of soil development separated by deposition events. Natural landslides in this environment comprise rare large deep-seated bedrock failures and occasional shallow failures on the steep upper slopes where potentially unstable thicknesses of tephra have accumulated. Landslides associated with construction of roads and forest trails are more common. Back-analysis of one road-cut landslide, using field and laboratory data to characterise the in situ weathered material where possible, indicated that natural shallow failures are unlikely in the absence of a surficial cover of tephra. By analogy with another mountainous tropical landscape, it is suggested that long-term landform development can be explained in terms of channel incision, driven by uplift, producing steep lower valley slopes that eventually exceed bedrock failure thresholds. Therefore, large deep-seated landslides appear to control valley slope form development, whilst the shallow landslides contribute to general denudation.

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Acknowledgements

This reconnaissance study was funded by Georgia Southern University. We particularly wish to thank Tony Nunnery and Barbara Bolz at Pacha Quindi, who kindly provided rainfall data and much general background information and personal records concerning the natural environment of the Tandayapa Valley. We also thank Richard Parsons at Bella Vista Lodge and Juan Veintimilla for other information and assistance in the field, Dr. Wei Tu (Georgia Southern University) for assistance with preparation of the map, and Lionel Jackson and an anonymous reviewer for suggesting improvements to this paper.

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  1. A. P. Dykes

    Present address: School of Earth Sciences & Geography, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, KT1 2EE, UK

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  1. Department of Geology and Geography, Georgia Southern University, Herty Building 1100, P.O. Box 8149, Statesboro, GA, 30460-8149, USA

    M. R. Welford

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Correspondence to A. P. Dykes.

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Dykes, A.P., Welford, M.R. Landslides in the Tandayapa Valley, northern Andes, Ecuador: implications for landform development in humid and tectonically active mountain ranges. Landslides 4, 177–187 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-006-0076-6

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