Microbes live throughout the soil profile. Microbial communities in subsurface horizons are impacted by a saltwater–freshwater transition zone formed by seawater intrusion (SWI) in coastal regions. The main purpose of this study is to explore the changes in microbial communities within the soil profile because of SWI. The study characterizes the depth-dependent distributions of bacterial and archaeal communities through high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons by collecting surface soil and deep core samples at nine soil depths in Longkou City, China. The results showed that although microbial communities were considerably impacted by SWI in both horizontal and vertical domains, the extent of these effects was variable. The soil depth strongly influenced the microbial communities, and the microbial diversity and community structure were significantly different (p < 0.05) at various depths. Compared with SWI, soil depth was a greater influencing factor for microbial diversity and community structure. Furthermore, soil microbial community structure was closely related to the environmental conditions, among which the most significant environmental factors were soil depth, pH, organic carbon, and total nitrogen.

Toppling is the foremost failure pattern of anaclinal rock slopes, and deep-seated toppling deformations (DSTDs) are common on high anaclinal slopes on the sides of gorges in western China. The DSTDs can develop to depths of more than 200 m, and may show distinct signs of zonal failure. Many DSTDs undergo transformation to large landslides involving rock volumes of more than 10⁶ m³. However, the conditions for the formation and the basic evolving processes of DSTDs remain unclear. This study seeks to develop an inventory to classify the distribution, and the conditioning factors which govern the formation and deformation modes of DSTDs in western China and to analyze the effect of the geological and geomorphological variables on the toppling intensities. To this end, forty-nine DSTDs were analyzed. The results indicate that DSTDs in western China are commonly distributed along large deeply incised rivers in the southeastern margin of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. The steep-dip anaclinal metamorphic soft or soft-hard-interbedded strata with near parallel strikes in the river channel, V-shaped deeply incised river channels, and convex slopes are favorable conditions for the formation of DSTDs in these settings. The dip angle, the gradient, and the height of most slopes which develop DSTDs are 60–90°, 30–50°, and 200–800 m, respectively. There is a highly positive relationship between the depth of toppling and the height of the slope. The toppled rock masses can be classed as extremely intense, intense, moderate, and weak toppling zones characterized by complete block detachment, tensile-shear fracture, tensile fracture, and reverse slip along foliations, respectively. Each zone corresponds to a specific range of the dip angle of the toppled strata, the aperture of the tensile cracks, the P-wave velocity, the state of rock weathering, and the degree of unloading. The extremely intense and the intense toppling zones tend to evolve into sliding failures. Overall, 94% of the DSTDs were derived from flexural toppling and 33% have developed into large landslides.

Mega-earthquakes and extreme climate events accompanied by intrinsic fragile geology lead to numerous landslides along mountain highways in Taiwan, causing enormous life and economic losses. In this study, a system for rapid slope disaster information integration and assessment is proposed with the aim of providing information on landslide occurrence, failure mechanisms, and subsequent landslide-affected areas to the highway authority rapidly. The functionality of the proposed system is deployed into three units: (1) geohazard rapid report (GeoPORT I), (2) multidisciplinary geological survey report (GeoPORT II), and (3) site-specific landslide simulation report (GeoPORT III). After landslide occurrence, the seismology-based monitoring network rapidly provides the initial slope disaster information, including preliminary location, event magnitude, earthquake activity, and source dynamics, within an hour. Within 3 days of the landslide, a multidisciplinary geological survey is conducted to collect high-precision topographical, geological, and remote-sensing data to determine the possible failure mechanism. After integrating the aforementioned information, a full-scale three-dimensional landslide simulation based on the discrete element method is performed within 10 days to reveal the failure process and to identify the areas potentially affected by subsequent disasters through scenario modeling. Overall, the proposed system can promptly provide comprehensive and objective information to relevant authorities after the event occurrence for hazard assessment. The proposed system was validated using a landslide event in the Central Cross-Island Highway of Taiwan.

The devastating damage after the 1999 Chi-Chi and 1999 Izmit earthquakes has greatly motivated soil–reverse fault interaction studies. However, most centrifuge modeling studies have employed a single homogeneous soil layer during testing, which does not represent in situ conditions. Indeed, while geological conditions vary spatially, engineering soils are often underlain by soft rocks. Therefore, four centrifuge models were developed to evaluate the effect of soft rock layers on the ground surface and subsurface deformation. Sand–cement mixtures of varying thicknesses with a uniaxial compressive strength of 0.975 MPa, simulating extremely soft rock, were overlain by pluviated sandy soil. The model thickness was 100 mm, corresponding to 8 m in the prototype scale when spun at 80 g. Every model was subjected to a vertical offset of 50 mm/4 m (0.5 H; H: total sedimentary deposit thickness) along a reverse fault with a 60° dip. The results indicate that the presence of a soft rock stratum results in the creation of a horst profile at the ground surface. Additionally, the thinner the soil layer on top of the soft rock stratum is, the longer and higher the horst created at the ground surface. Consequently, the fault deformation zone lengthens proportionally with the increasing thickness ratio of the soft rock. Furthermore, the presence of soft rock as an intermediary stratum between bedrock and soil causes the deformation zone boundary on the hanging wall side to move in the direction of fault movement.