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The Dynamics of Subaqueous Rock Avalanches: The Role of Dynamic Fragmentation

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Landslide Science and Practice

Abstract

Rock and debris-avalanches are catastrophic failures occurring both on land and in the subaqueous environment. The apparent friction coefficient of subaqueous rock avalanches is significantly greater than that of debris flows of the same volume. We argue that this is the consequence of the presence of large fragments in a travelling rock avalanche, which affects both the drag coefficient and the capability of hydroplaning. We suggest that the presence of water damps the fragmentation of the subaqueous rock avalanches, as indicated by the presence of much larger blocks in the deposits of subaqueous rock avalanches compared to the subaerial ones. We present simple estimates to evaluate the disintegration rates during the flow in the two different environments and we found that this is strongly reduced in water mainly due to: (1) reduction of inter-granular impact energy; (2) smoother topography in subaqueous landscape; (3) lower velocities reached due to the water resistance.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from the CERI, Research Centre for Hydrogeological Risks, University of Rome “Sapienza”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NHAZCA S.r.l., spin-off “Sapienza” Università di Roma, Via Cori snc, Rome, 00177, Italy

    Paolo Mazzanti & Fabio Vittorio De Blasio

  2. CERI, Research Centre for Prevention, Prediction and Control of Geological Risks, “Sapienza” Università di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Paolo Mazzanti

  3. Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Fabio Vittorio De Blasio

Authors
  1. Paolo Mazzanti
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  2. Fabio Vittorio De Blasio
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Correspondence to Paolo Mazzanti .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Geological Survey of Italy, ISPRA - Italian Institute for Environmen, Rome, Italy

    Claudio Margottini

  2. ICL - International Consortium on Landsl, Florence, Italy

    Paolo Canuti

  3. Kyoto University Uji-Campus, Uji, Kyoto, Japan

    Kyoji Sassa

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Mazzanti, P., De Blasio, F.V. (2013). The Dynamics of Subaqueous Rock Avalanches: The Role of Dynamic Fragmentation. In: Margottini, C., Canuti, P., Sassa, K. (eds) Landslide Science and Practice. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31427-8_4

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