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The landslide story

Nature Geoscience volume 6, pages 325–326 (2013)Cite this article

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The catastrophic Wenchuan earthquake induced an unprecedented number of geohazards. The risk of heightened landslide frequency after a quake, with potential secondary effects such as river damming and subsequent floods, needs more focused attention.

Furthermore, large-scale landslides — each displacing surface material from an area of more than 50,000 m2 — were concentrated where fault slip rates were highest5,7, near the intersections and junctures of individual segments of the fault (Fig. 2). These junctions between fault segments were thought to be locked5, with the potential to fail only when sufficient stress has accumulated by a cascade of rupturing in adjoining individual segments. Once they do break, these long-locked junctions are then thought to release large amounts of seismic energy. The observation that landslides are prevalent at these junctions supports the proposed high energy release, and hence the theory of locked junctions.

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Figure 1: The Daguangbao landslide.

© RUNQIU HUANG

Figure 2: Tectonic and geomorphic settings of the Wenchuan earthquake, China.

© RUNQIU HUANG

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Runqiu Huang and Xuanmei Fan are at the State Key Laboratory of Geohazards Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, Sichuan, China,

    Runqiu Huang & Xuanmei Fan

  2. Xuanmei Fan is also at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, 7500 AE, Enschede, The Netherlands,

    Xuanmei Fan

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  1. Runqiu Huang
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  2. Xuanmei Fan
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Correspondence to Runqiu Huang or Xuanmei Fan.

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Huang, R., Fan, X. The landslide story. Nature Geosci 6, 325–326 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1806

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