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Landslide Dams in the Central Andes of Argentina (Northern Patagonia and the Argentine Northwest)

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Natural and Artificial Rockslide Dams

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences ((LNEARTH,volume 133))

Abstract

Landslide dams are frequent phenomena in the Argentine Andes. We studied 20 landslide dams in NW Argentina and 41 landslide dams in northern Patagonia. These examples show that most of the landslide dams in both regions have longevity of several hundred to several tens of thousands of years. In those cases where the mode of dam erosion/breach was reconstructable it was either related to climatic variability influencing the inflow of water into the landslide-dammed lake or by landsliding into the landslide dammed lake causing a tsunami wave which overtopped the dam crown and caused its erosion. However such tsunami waves not always lead to dam failure. There is one case where flood deposits downriver a dam exist and the landslide dammed lake contains a voluminous landslide deposit, however the dam did not breach. Hence the flood deposits are related to the tsunami wave but not to a breach. In addition, our examples indicate the necessity of expanding the well established dam classification system used globally in the past 18 years. Here we define 4 further dam types which are related to (a) the diversion of the river away from the valley over bedrock (b) the diversion of the river into the neighbouring catchments (c) the deposition of the landslide in a drainage divide, and (d) the formation of multiple dams by the breach of a landslide dam itself. Furthermore, ponds on top of landslide deposits are frequent and depending on their size a catastrophic release may cause damage.

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Acknowledgement

This project was sponsored by the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft as part of the Collaborative Research Center 267 and Graduate College 450 grant to Hermanns. We especially emphasize that Mario A. Deza inspired R.L.H. to start landslide studies in N-Patagonia. Mario died during our first campaign in November 2002 crossing Lileo river. This paper is dedicated to Mario who conducted landslide hazard research in Neuquén Province as a private effort in his spare time. Although we did not know Mario well, we were impressed by his professional dedication, by his open and always friendly way in interacting with people, and the way he loved the Neuquén Andes. We also thank A. Villanueva Garcia and R. Alonso for fruitful discussions, field assistance and logistcal support in NW Argentina and M.R. Strecker and M. Trauth for discussions in Potsdam. A. Pagenkopf helped to assemble data on landslide dams in N Patagonia. R.L.H. acknowledges B. Merz, G. Borm, J. Erzinger, K. Czurda, and F. Gehbauer for their encouragement and help, and C. Hickson for her support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Centre for Geohazards, Geological Survey of Norway, Trondheim, Norway

    Reginald L. Hermanns

  2. Laboratorio de Tectónica Andina, Universidad Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Andres Folguera & Ivanna Penna

  3. Servicio Geológico Argentino, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Luis Fauqué

  4. GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, D-14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Samuel Niedermann

Authors
  1. Reginald L. Hermanns
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  2. Andres Folguera
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  3. Ivanna Penna
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  4. Luis Fauqué
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  5. Samuel Niedermann
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Correspondence to Reginald L. Hermanns .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Earth & Environmental Sciences, Landslide Research Program, University of Waterloo, University Avenue W. 200, Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Ontario, Canada

    Stephen G. Evans

  2. Dept. Geophysics, Geological Survey of Norway, Trondheim, 7491, Norway

    Reginald L. Hermanns

  3. Institute of the Geospheres Dynamics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninskiy Avenue 38, Moscow, 119334, Russian Federation

    Alexander Strom

  4. Dipto. Scienze della Terra, Università Roma, La Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, Roma, 00185, Italy

    Gabriele Scarascia-Mugnozza

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Hermanns, R.L., Folguera, A., Penna, I., Fauqué, L., Niedermann, S. (2011). Landslide Dams in the Central Andes of Argentina (Northern Patagonia and the Argentine Northwest). In: Evans, S., Hermanns, R., Strom, A., Scarascia-Mugnozza, G. (eds) Natural and Artificial Rockslide Dams. Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences, vol 133. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04764-0_5

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