Abstract
The Aresawa rockslide in the Japanese Alps encountered a deep, partial collapse during an early snow-melting period in May 2004, followed by further progressive movement of the headscarp area. This paper reconstructs the pre-failure topography of the Aresawa rockslide based on the analysis of aerial photographs taken in multiple periods, and analyzes the factors controlling the threshold for the 2004 collapse. At least seven months before the collapse, new tension cracks emerged about 25 m behind the headscarp as a result of downslope movement of an unstable rock slab 5–10 × 105 m3 in volume, accompanied by the development of a slip plane below a pre-existing shallow trough (sackung feature). The collapse finally occurred when progressive weakening of the rock mass was combined with water infiltration into the ground during rapid snow melting.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by Research and Education Funding for Japanese Alps Inter-Universities Cooperative Project, MEXT, Japan. We wish to thank Fujikawa River Basin SABO Office, Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport, for providing Airborne LiDAR data, photographs and a report on the 2004 event. We also acknowledge members of Geomorphological Laboratory in University of Tsukuba, those of Department of Soil and Water Conservation in Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Yuichi Onda, Taro Uchida and Atsushi Ikeda, for their valuable and helpful comments and technical advices on our research.
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Nishii, R., Matsuoka, N., Daimaru, H. et al. Precursors and triggers of an alpine rockslide in Japan: the 2004 partial collapse during a snow-melting period. Landslides 10, 75–82 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-012-0353-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-012-0353-5