analyses on the triggering facrors of large quantities of landslides in the upper reaches of the minjiang river,sichuan province |
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| Authors: | LI Yan-hao JIANG Han-chao XU Hong-yan LIANG Lian-ji |
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| Institution: | State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing 100029, China |
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| Abstract: | Over the past geological and historical period, tens of thousands of landslides occurred in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River, an area which is characterized by alpine valleys and has been densely populated over the past several hundreds of years. Discussing the triggering factor of these landslides is of great significance to geological hazard mitigation and prevention in this region. In this paper, we focus on four aspects of regional rainfall, shape features of landslide slopes, the corresponding relationship between landslide area and earthquake magnitude, and the recurring features of the reconstructed palaeoearthquake record at Diexi. Compared with those in Nepal, both mean seasonal rainfall accumulation and mean daily rainfall for the past 30 years are too low to reach the threshold values triggering landslides in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River. Secondly, landslides in the study area are usually absent of inner gorges(canyon topography)on the hillslope toes, which are confirmed in previous studies as typical features of landslides triggered by storms. Thirdly, wide distribution of the landslides in the study area supports our notion of earthquake-triggering because the landslides triggered by storms commonly distribute locally. Fourthly, periodicity analysis of the reconstructed palaeoearthquake record at Diexi provides a few cycles of twenty to thirty years, possibly corresponding to the earthquakes of magnitudes>5.0 or 5.5 which are believed to have caused soft-sediment deformation in the study area. In contrast, like the 2008 MS8.0 Wenchuan earthquake, the average recurrence interval of the large earthquakes in the study area is 2.6ka. They caused tens of thousands of landslides and provided more coarse silt particles for the nearby lake sediments at least in 330 years for each time. This is consistent with exponential increase of earthquake magnitude from large to medium and of the landslide area with the increased earthquake magnitude. To sum up, we suggest that tens of thousands of landslides in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River were most likely triggered by earthquakes instead of storms. This preliminary viewpoint needs further examination in the future. |
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| Keywords: | upper reaches of the Minjiang River landslide mechanism earthquake storm shape features of landslide slopes recurrence interval |
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