{"id":14757,"date":"2015-03-10T07:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T07:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=14757"},"modified":"2015-03-09T08:01:43","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T08:01:43","slug":"review-of-a-paper-the-27th-february-2014-san-leo-landslide-in-northern-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2015\/03\/10\/review-of-a-paper-the-27th-february-2014-san-leo-landslide-in-northern-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of a paper &#8211; the 27th February 2014 San Leo landslide in northern Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>27th February 2014 San Leo landslide<\/h5>\n<p>on 27th February 2014 a large landslide affected the historical town of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/San_Leo\">San Leo,<\/a> in the Montefeltro area of northern Italy, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2014\/03\/07\/birling-gap\/\">which I reported at the time<\/a>.\u00a0 In a paper in the journal Landslides, Lisa Borgatti and colleagues (<a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1007\/s10346-015-0559-4\">Borgatti et al. 2015<\/a>) provide an overview of the San Leo landslide, including a historical perspective on large failures of the massif.\u00a0 There is no doubt that San Leo is both a spectacular location and somewhat prone to slope failures:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14758\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/03\/15_03-San-Leo-1-e1425885641472.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14758\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14758\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/03\/15_03-San-Leo-1-e1425885641472.jpg\" alt=\"San Leo\" width=\"640\" height=\"361\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-14758\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"http:\/\/it.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/San_Leo_%28Italia%29#mediaviewer\/File:San_Leo_I.jpg\">Wikipedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>The town dates from Roman times; the churches were built in the 12th Century, as does the castle.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the spectacular setting means that landslides are inevitable &#8211; the limestone \/ sandstone block that forms the citadel is underlain by varicoloured clays, which provide a poor foundation, allowing movements to slowly develop in the main block.<\/p>\n<p>The collapse on 27th February 2014 occurred on the flank of the limestone block, and fortunately did not destroy any buildings or strike any people. The best view of the landslide is from drone footage captured in a Youtube video:<\/p>\n<p>.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0OJp5BgoLW4\" width=\"640\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p>Seismic data suggest that it occurred in two distinct events about 90 seconds apart.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1007\/s10346-015-0559-4\">Borgatti et al. (2014)<\/a> postulate a progressive failure followed by a topple event and rapid disintegration of the block:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14759\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/03\/15_03-San-Leo-2-e1425886517760.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14759\" class=\"wp-image-14759 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/03\/15_03-San-Leo-2-e1425886517760.gif\" alt=\"San Leo\" width=\"640\" height=\"497\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-14759\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tentative reconstruction of the time evolution of the landslide event (<a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1007\/s10346-015-0559-4\">Borgatti <em>et al.<\/em> 2015<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the paper is this image, which compares a watercolour painted in 1626 by Francesco Mingucci with a modern day photograph from the same perspective:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14760\" style=\"width: 577px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/03\/15_03-San-Leo-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14760\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14760\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/03\/15_03-San-Leo-3.jpg\" alt=\"San Leo\" width=\"567\" height=\"583\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/03\/15_03-San-Leo-3.jpg 567w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/03\/15_03-San-Leo-3-291x300.jpg 291w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 567px) 100vw, 567px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-14760\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comparative pictures showing the evolution of the north-eastern cliff face of San Leo village (<a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1007\/s10346-015-0559-4\">Borgatti <em>et al.<\/em> 2015<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Even allowing for artistic license the degree to which landslide has removed sections of the massif is very clear.\u00a0 In 1737 it is reported that a landslide from the block killed up to 100 people .\u00a0 These landslides will have profound implications for the preservation of this important historical site.<\/p>\n<h5>Reference<\/h5>\n<p>Borgatti, L., Guerra, C. Nesci, O. Romeo, R.W., Veneri, F., Landuzzi, A., Benedetti, G., Marchi, G., Lucente, C.C. 2015. <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1007\/s10346-015-0559-4\">The 27 February 2014 San Leo landslide (northern Italy)<\/a>. Landslides. Doi: <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1007\/s10346-015-0559-4\">http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1007\/s10346-015-0559-4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a newly published paper, Lisa Borgatti and colleagues describe the February 2014 landslide that affected the historical town of San Leo in northern Italy, providing both a description of the event and a historical context.  Landslides will be a major threat to this historical site in the coming decades<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":14760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[544,1],"tags":[144,469,36,959,192,17,56,540],"class_list":["post-14757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review-of-a-paper","category-uncategorized","tag-europe","tag-featured","tag-italy","tag-landslide-report","tag-paper","tag-research","tag-rockfall","tag-topple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}