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From surface morphologies to inner structures: insights into hypermobility of the Nixu rock avalanche, southern Tibet, China

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Abstract

Large rock avalanches often result in many deaths and catastrophic damage to infrastructure far from source. No consensus has yet been reached on mechanisms causing their extraordinarily long runout since the first study at the Elm Slide, Switzerland. Much current understanding of rock avalanche kinematics and dynamics has been gained from observations of their surface morphologies and inner structures. Based on field surveys, high-resolution satellite image interpretation, and laboratory sieving, we analyzed the ancient, earthquake-induced Nixu rock avalanche in southern Tibet, China, which has unique exposures of both morphological features and inner structures of the deposits. The study revealed that (1) the Nixu rock avalanche probably could be disintegrated into three emplacement stages, transforming from an initial deep-seated rockslide into a large secondary debris avalanche, plus a relatively small third debris avalanche. The spreading of the secondary debris avalanche contributed to the subsequent long-runout propagation. (2) The morphological features observed in successive proximal to distal exposures (such as scarps, flowbands, transverse ridges, grid grooves, hummocks, and splash zones) reflect the change in stress-strain state of debris in motion from tension, to compression, to shear and tension. (3) The complicated inner structures exposed along river banks (such as jigsaw structures, fragmented clasts, inner shear zones, conjunction faults, convoluted lamination, decollements, sand injections, and intrusions) indicate the existence of a thin basal shear zone and a pressurized entrained substrate between the substrate and rock avalanche debris. (4) This suggests turbulent flow with bulldozing in the front, but a laminar flow under a simple shear model for the main body. (5) The analysis suggests that the rock avalanche’s extraordinary mobility involves a combination of momentum transfer, substrate entrainment, liquefied basal shearing, internal shearing, and rock fragmentation.

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Funding

The work is supported by financial grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41772382), the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Exploration Research Program (2019QZKK0904), the National Natural Science Foundation of China – Henan Joint Fund (U1704243), the International Cooperation Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (131551KYSB20180042), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC1505301). We thank Professor TRH Davies of University of Canterbury, and YJ Shang and LQ Zhang of Institute of Geophysics and Geology of CAS for constructive discussions. Many thanks to Dr. Du of Xi’an Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Center for the age dating. We thank the Editor Manager, Dr. Brideau M-A, and another anonymous reviewer for constructive comments on this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Computational Geodynamics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Qingli Zeng & Rongqiang Wei

  2. College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Qingli Zeng & Rongqiang Wei

  3. GNS Science, PO Box 30368, Lower Hutt, 9040, New Zealand

    Mauri McSaveney

  4. Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Fengshan Ma

  5. College of Resources and Environment, North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Zhengzhou, 450045, China

    Guangxiang Yuan & Liye Liao

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  1. Qingli Zeng
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Correspondence to Qingli Zeng.

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Zeng, Q., Wei, R., McSaveney, M. et al. From surface morphologies to inner structures: insights into hypermobility of the Nixu rock avalanche, southern Tibet, China. Landslides 18, 125–143 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-020-01503-6

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