Abstract
The infrastructure construction in tectonically active mountainous areas is faced with the threat of earthquake-induced rockslide-avalanches. We took the Woqian rockslide-avalanche induced by the Wenchuan earthquake near the Qinchuan active fault, Southwestern China as an instance to elucidate a unique initiation mechanism of the inward inclined bedding slope, which had a characteristic of twice destabilization in succession. The high-resolution satellite images, UAV aerial photography, field investigation, and numerical simulation were conducted to reveal the failure processes. The results suggested that (1) the long-term headward erosion of the gully runoff had locally exposed the unconformity contact plane within the strata, which evolved as a part of the sliding plane; (2) the seismic loading produced a rapid shear strain increment on the unconformity plane; (3) the brittle rupture occurred along the sliding plane at the bottom of the sliding source I developed at 6 s after the seismic wave arrival; (4) as a “resistance barrier”, the sliding source I first collapsed and most of it accumulated at a short distance; (5) the sliding source II subsequently slid along the apparent dip of the bedding plane and then entrained the deposits of the source I into a catastrophic rock avalanche. The failure mechanism of such carbonaceous bedding slopes with similar geological conditions could provide an insight into the early risk recognition of potential rockslides and the safe site selection of infrastructures.
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© Google Earth). a. initial topography of linear fault valley and compressive ridges before the WRA, joint set J1 (dip 40°, dip direction 80°) subparallel to the N-S mountain ridge became the rear boundary of the sliding source. b. distribution characteristics of the deposits of the WRA and two lateral deep-cutting grooves along the gully showing two sliding paths
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the Sichuan Province Science and Technology Support Program (2021YJ0033) and the research project of the Department of Natural Resources of Sichuan Province (Kj-2022-29) for their strong support for this topic. The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to Professor Bernd Wünnemann of Southwest Jiaotong University for discussing the academic ideas and improving the quality of the paper. Further, the authors also thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable time and suggestions.
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Luo, G., Chen, X., Zhang, Q. et al. Failure mechanism and sedimentary characteristics of a catastrophic rockslide avalanche induced by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. Landslides 20, 25–38 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-022-01955-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-022-01955-y