Abstract
High-mountain environments in an active tectonic setting are prone to landsliding. The triggering mechanisms can vary, as these areas are influenced by several pre-conditioning factors coupled with active seismicity and climatic forcings. Understanding the intrinsic and external mechanisms by which these events are influenced would help to establish better constraints onto their timing and periodicity and, eventually, hazard assessment and prediction. Glacially eroded valleys are especially prone as they deeply incise mountain ranges leaving unstable slopes once they retreat. Establishing the timing of such events enables better understanding of the triggering and pre-conditioning factors of landslides. To this aim, 10Be and 26Al cosmogenic age determinations were performed in three landslide deposits in a poorly studied area of San Juan province, all of which are novel to the area. Coupled with remote sensing techniques, field observations and detailed stratigraphic and sedimentological studies, these new large landslides represent a first approach to understand this dynamic environment. The three landslides were categorized as rock avalanches found in the middle and lower reaches of the Blanco River, sourced from the Choiyoi Group with evidence of hydrothermal alteration and including/deforming moraine deposits during their fall. Ages are 20.9 ± 1.4, 10.8 ± 0.7 and 12.8 ± 0.9 ka from the lowermost deposit to the highest, respectively. Even though one sample per deposit is not enough to have statistically significant exposure ages, these values, along with the established chronostratigraphy, allow first order interpretations regarding the links between deglaciation processes and readjustment of the slopes via large landslide events.
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Acknowledgements
This article was based on previous studies and findings of running researches supported by PIP 11220150100191CO project, the ANLAC (Natural Hazards in the Central Andes: analysis, prediction and valuation) Program from University of Cuyo, and SeCTyP 2016-2018 (A06/669-Res.3820/2016) project lead all of them by Prof. Moreiras. We would like to thank the team in the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy in the University of Cologne for lending the crush lab and magnetic separator used for the physical preparation of the samples, specially to Tomasz Goral for his assistance. We also would like to thank the DREAMS team in HZDR, especially Georg Rugel for helping with AMS data treatment, Johannes von Borany for the official invitation to HZDR, Sabina Beutner (HZDR) for the ICP-MS measurements of 27Al and the ASTER-CEREGE team for taking special care of the AMS samples sent to France. The ASTER AMS national facility (CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence) is supported by the INSU/CNRS, the ANR through the “Projets thématiques d’excellence” program for the “Equipements d’excellence” ASTER-CEREGE action and IRD.
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Jeanneret, P. et al. (2021). Novel Cosmogenic Datings in Landslide Deposits, San Juan, Argentina. In: Vilímek, V., Wang, F., Strom, A., Sassa, K., Bobrowsky, P.T., Takara, K. (eds) Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk. WLF 2020. ICL Contribution to Landslide Disaster Risk Reduction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60319-9_40
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