Rockfall ≈ Rockfall
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Earthquake‐Induced Chains of Geologic Hazards: Patterns, Mechanisms, and Impacts Open
Large earthquakes initiate chains of surface processes that last much longer than the brief moments of strong shaking. Most moderate‐ and large‐magnitude earthquakes trigger landslides, ranging from small failures in the soil cover to mass…
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Back calculation of the 2017 Piz Cengalo–Bondo landslide cascade with r.avaflow: what we can do and what we can learn Open
In the morning of 23 August 2017, around 3×106 m3 of granitoid rock broke off from the eastern face of Piz Cengalo, southeastern Switzerland. The initial rockslide–rockfall entrained 6×105m3 of a glacier and continued as a rock (or rock–ic…
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Influence of meteorological factors on rockfall occurrence in a middle mountain limestone cliff Open
The influence of meteorological conditions on rockfall occurrence has been often highlighted, but knowledge of it is still not sufficient due to the lack of exhaustive and precise rockfall databases. In this study, rockfalls have been dete…
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How well can we simulate complex hydro‐geomorphic process chains? The 2012 multi‐lake outburst flood in the Santa Cruz Valley (Cordillera Blanca, Perú) Open
Changing high‐mountain environments are characterized by destabilizing ice, rock or debris slopes connected to evolving glacial lakes. Such configurations may lead to potentially devastating sequences of mass movements (process chains or c…
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Optimising 4-D surface change detection: an approach for capturing rockfall magnitude–frequency Open
We present a monitoring technique tailored to analysing change from near-continuously collected, high-resolution 3-D data. Our aim is to fully characterise geomorphological change typified by an event magnitude–frequency relationship that …
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Increasing rock-avalanche size and mobility in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska detected from 1984 to 2016 Landsat imagery Open
In the USA, climate change is expected to have an adverse impact on slope stability in Alaska. However, to date, there has been limited work done in Alaska to assess if changes in slope stability are occurring. To address this issue, we us…
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Natural hazard fatalities in Switzerland from 1946 to 2015 Open
A database of fatalities caused by natural hazard processes in Switzerland was compiled for the period between 1946 and 2015. Using information from the Swiss flood and landslide damage database and the Swiss destructive avalanche database…
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Rockfall Simulation Based on UAV Photogrammetry Data Obtained during an Emergency Declaration: Application at a Cultural Heritage Site Open
In recent years, there was an increasing number of studies focusing on rockfalls due to their impacts on social and sustainable development. This work carries out a three-dimensional (3D) simulation of rockfalls at a cultural heritage site…
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Modelling rock wall permafrost degradation in the Mont Blanc massif from the LIA to the end of the 21st century Open
High alpine rock wall permafrost is extremely sensitive to climate change. Its degradation has a strong impact on landscape evolution and can trigger rockfalls constituting an increasing threat to socio-economical activities of highly freq…
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Investigation of rock fragmentation during rockfalls and rock avalanches via 3‐D discrete element analyses Open
This paper investigates the characteristics of dynamic rock fragmentation and its influence on the postfailure fragment trajectory. A series of numerical simulations by discrete element method (DEM) were performed for a simple rock block a…
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Pronounced increase in slope instability linked to global warming: A case study from the eastern European Alps Open
In recent decades, slope instability in high‐mountain regions has often been linked to increase in temperature and the associated permafrost degradation and/or the increase in frequency/intensity of rainstorm events. In this context we ana…
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A rockfall-induced glacial lake outburst flood, Upper Barun Valley, Nepal Open
\nOn April 20, 2017, a flood from the Barun River, Makalu-Barun National Park, eastern Nepal formed a 2–3-km-long lake at its confluence with the Arun River as a result of blockage by debris. Although the lake drained spontaneously t…
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Landslides triggered by the Gorkha earthquake in the Langtang valley, volumes and initiation processes Open
The Gorkha earthquake (Nepal, 2015, M w 7.9) triggered many landslides. The most catastrophic mass movement was a debris avalanche that buried several villages in the Langtang valley. In this study, questions are raised about its volume an…
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Automated terrestrial laser scanning with near-real-time change detection – monitoring of the Séchilienne landslide Open
We present an automated terrestrial laser scanning (ATLS) system with automatic near-real-time change detection processing. The ATLS system was tested on the Séchilienne landslide in France for a 6-week period with data collected at 30 min…
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Development and Optimization of an Automated Fixed-Location Time Lapse Photogrammetric Rock Slope Monitoring System Open
An automated, fixed-location, time lapse camera system was developed as an alternative to monitoring geological processes with lidar or ground-based interferometric synthetic-aperture radar (GB-InSAR). The camera system was designed to det…
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DEM analyses of rock block shape effect on the response of rockfall impact against a soil buffering layer Open
This study investigates the mechanism of rockfall impact against a granular soil buffering layer above a concrete/rock shed via numerical simulations by discrete element method (DEM). The soil buffering layer is modeled as a loose packing …
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Application of a physically based model to forecast shallow landslides at a regional scale Open
In this work, we apply a physically based model, namely the HIRESSS (HIgh REsolution Slope Stability Simulator) model, to forecast the occurrence of shallow landslides at the regional scale. HIRESSS is a physically based distributed slope …
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Multi-Hazard Exposure Mapping Using Machine Learning Techniques: A Case Study from Iran Open
Mountainous areas are highly prone to a variety of nature-triggered disasters, which often cause disabling harm, death, destruction, and damage. In this work, an attempt was made to develop an accurate multi-hazard exposure map for a mount…
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Rockfall Research: A Bibliometric Analysis and Future Trends Open
Rockfall is one of the main phenomena in mountainous environments due to its fast and high speed of movement, its unpredictability, and, therefore, the difficulty of identifying signs of instability and detachment of the blocks. Compared t…
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Cost-effective erosion monitoring of coastal cliffs Open
Structure-from-motion with multi-view stereo (SfM-MVS) methods hold the potential for monitoring and quantifying cliff erosion to levels of accuracy and precision which rival terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and at a fraction of the cost. …
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Erosion and sediment transfer processes at the front of rapidly moving rock glaciers: Systematic observations with automatic cameras in the western Swiss Alps Open
When connected to torrential channels, the fronts of active rock glaciers constitute important sediment sources for gravitational transfer processes. In this study, a 2013–16 time series of in situ webcam images from the western Swiss Alps…
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Current glacier recession causes significant rockfall increase: the immediate paraglacial response of deglaciating cirque walls Open
In the European Alps, almost half the glacier volume has disappeared over the past 150 years. The loss is reflected in glacier retreat and ice surface lowering even at high altitude. In steep glacial cirques, surface lowering exposes rock …
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The Implications of M3C2 Projection Diameter on 3D Semi-Automated Rockfall Extraction from Sequential Terrestrial Laser Scanning Point Clouds Open
Rockfall inventories are essential to quantify a rockfall activity and characterize the hazard. Terrestrial laser scanning and advancements in processing algorithms have resulted in three-dimensional (3D) semi-automatic extraction of rockf…
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UAV and Airborne LiDAR Data for Interpreting Kinematic Evolution of Landslide Movements: The Case Study of the Montescaglioso Landslide (Southern Italy) Open
Airborne remote sensing systems are increasingly used in engineering geology and geomorphology for studying and monitoring natural hazardous scenarios and events. In this study, we used two remote sensing monitoring techniques, i.e., light…
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The Importance of Monitoring Interval for Rockfall Magnitude‐Frequency Estimation Open
Rockfalls commonly exhibit power law volume‐frequency distributions, where fewer large events are observed relative to more numerous small events. Within most inventories, the smallest rockfalls are the most difficult to detect and so may …
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A review of the methods to incorporate the geological and geotechnical characteristics of rock masses in blastability assessments for selective blast design Open
Rock fragmentation by blasting is still among the most challenging of problems in geomechanical engineering. The intent of this work is not to develop a new overall blast fragmentation model as the existing models, like Swebrec (KCO), the …
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Quantitative analysis of risk from fragmental rockfalls Open
Rockfalls are ubiquitous diffuse hazard in mountain regions, cliffs, and cutslopes, with the potential of causing victims and severely damaging buildings and infrastructures. A vast majority of detached rock masses break up when impacting …
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Monitoring the crisis of a rock glacier with repeated UAV surveys Open
In this study, rapid topographic changes and high creeping rates caused by the destabilisation of an active rock glacier in a steep mountain flank were investigated in detail with five unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveys between June 201…
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Structurally controlled rock slope deformation in northern Norway Open
Gravitational forcing of oversteepened rock mass leads to progressive failure, including rupture, creeping, sliding and eventual avalanching of the unstable mass. As the point of rupture initiation typically follows pre-existing structural…
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Map of landslides triggered by the January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake Open
First posted April 12, 2016 For additional information, contact: Center Director, USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center Box 25046, Mail Stop 966Denver, CO 80225http://geohazards.cr.usgs.gov/ The magnitude (M) 7.0 Haiti earthquake of January…