Each year in mid-April we move into the global “landslide season”, when the development of the Northern Hemisphere summer, and the associated weather patterns elsewhere, means that the number of landslides starts to increase dramatically. This is all too clear from the range of landslide events in the last few days, plus the threat of heavy rainfall in the earthquake affected areas of China: 1. Major landslide in PeruA range …

You will probably be aware that an apparently quite destructive earthquake struck central Italy overnight. I thought I’d try to give a first take on the likely impact of this event. First, as ever, there is some pretty good information about the earthquake on the USGS Earthquake program website. They have provided the following helpful maps: Earthquake location:Shaking intensity: Exposed population (PAGER): At this point (c. 8:00 UT) the USGS …

This is the fifth and last part of my photographic description of damage caused by the Sichuan earthquake. The other parts are as follows: Part 1: Beichuan townPart 2: The Tangjiashan landslidePart 3: Hanwang townPart 4: The Mianyuanhe areaPart 5 (this part): The Xingyiu area This final section shows images from a visit to the Xingyiu area, which is quite close to the main epicentral region. In this area the …

This is the fourth part of my photographic description of damage caused by the Sichuan earthquake. The other parts are as follows: Part 1: Beichuan townPart 2: The Tangjiashan landslidePart 3: Hanwang townPart 4 (this part): The Mianyuanhe areaPart 5: The Xingyiu area First a location map. The Mianyuanhe area is a fairly large river valley that cuts through the Longmen mountain chain, with its mouth as Hanwang as shown …

On Monday I gave a presentation to staff and students at the State Key Laboratory for Geohazards at Chengdu University of Technology – the topic was the lessons that can be learnt about earthquake-induced landslides from the Taiwan (1999) and Kashmir (2005) earthquakes. This is the presentation: http://www.authorstream.com/player/player.swf?p=167992_633737258388926500Uploaded on authorSTREAM by Dr_Dave I ask only that you acknowledge me in any use that you might make of it.

This is the third of my five sets of images of the impact of the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan, China. The first two are as follows:Part 1: Beichuan town Part 2: The Tangjiashan landslide Part 3 (this part): Hanwang townPart 4: The Mianyuanhe areaPart 5: The Xingyiu area In this set of images I feature the town of Hanwang, on the edge of the mountains. The location of Hanwang is …

There is little doubt that the Wenchuan (Sichuan) earthquake in May generated a huge number of shallow rock slides. A very odd story has now appeared in the Chinese media in which it is observed that the rock slide scars appear to form frescoes (wall-mounted murals) on the mountain sides. So, in the words of the People’s Daily Online “Although the massive Wenchuan Earthquake caused tremendous damage, it has also …

At recent edition of Science carries a really intriguing review piece that examines the triggers of the Wenchuan earthquake. Although earthquake triggering is really beyond the scope of this blog, the huge number of devastating landslides that the earthquake induced means that this is of interest. The article can be read online here. The article has emerged from work undertaken at two different locations. Christian Klose of Columbia University presented …

There is a very interesting paper being published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Dan Sandweiss, Ruth Shady, Mike Moseley, Dave Keefer and Charles Ortloff. This paper, which is reported in a long press release from the University of Florida, combines archaeology, geology and geomorphology to look at the collapse of the Supe civilisation in Peru, which survived for a couple of millennia in …

I thought a brief follow up email to my previous posts about the Costa Rica earthquake would be useful now that we are five days post the event. So what do we now know? Well, first the final death toll is likely to be about 40, most of whom were killed by landslides. Officially, as of today, 19 bodies have been recovered and 21 more are buried under landslide debris. …