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Landslides induced by the 2010 Chile megathrust earthquake: a comprehensive inventory and correlations with geological and seismic factors

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Abstract

The 2010 Mw = 8.8 Maule earthquake, which occurred in the subduction contact between the Nazca and the South American tectonic plates off the coast of Chile, represents an important opportunity to improve understanding of the distribution and controls for the generation of landslides triggered by large megathrust earthquakes in subduction zones. This paper provides the analysis of the comprehensive landslide inventory for the Maule earthquake between 32.5° S and 38.5° S. In total, 1226 landslides were mapped over a total area of c. 120,500 km2, dominantly disrupted slides. The total landslide volume is c. 10.6 Mm3. The events are unevenly distributed in the study area, the majority of landslides located in the Principal Andean Cordillera and a very constrained region near the coast on the Arauco Peninsula, forming landslide clusters. Statistical analysis of our database suggests that relief and lithology are the main geological factors controlling coseismic landslides, whilst the seismic factor with higher correlation with landslide occurrence is the ratio between peak horizontal and peak vertical ground accelerations. The results and comparison with other seismic events elsewhere suggest that the number of landslides generated by megathrust earthquakes is lower than events triggered by shallow crustal earthquakes by at least one or two orders of magnitude, which is very important to consider in future seismic landslide hazard analysis.

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Acknowledgments

We thank valuable comments by D.R. Tippin and two anonymous reviewers that allowed improvement of the manuscript. Mapping work collaboration and support by S. Moya, J. Tondreau, C. Apablaza, M. Froude and M. Brain are greatly acknowledged. Figures 3 and 6 were prepared with the Generic Mapping Tools (Wessel and Smith 1998).

Funding

 This work is supported by the RCUK-Conicyt Newton Fund International Cooperation Programme Project NE/N000315/1 “Seismically-induced landslides in Chile: New tools for hazard assessment and disaster prevention” and Fondecyt project 1140317.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Geología, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Alejandra Serey & Sergio A. Sepúlveda

  2. Instituto de Ciencias de la Ingeniería, Universidad de O’Higgins, Rancagua, Chile

    Laura Piñero-Feliciangeli, Sergio A. Sepúlveda & Fernando Poblete

  3. Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England

    David N. Petley

  4. School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, England

    William Murphy

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  1. Alejandra Serey
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  2. Laura Piñero-Feliciangeli
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  3. Sergio A. Sepúlveda
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Correspondence to Alejandra Serey.

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Serey, A., Piñero-Feliciangeli, L., Sepúlveda, S.A. et al. Landslides induced by the 2010 Chile megathrust earthquake: a comprehensive inventory and correlations with geological and seismic factors. Landslides 16, 1153–1165 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-019-01150-6

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