{"id":15326,"date":"2015-06-27T07:42:33","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T07:42:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=15326"},"modified":"2015-06-27T07:42:33","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T07:42:33","slug":"lac-du-chambon-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2015\/06\/27\/lac-du-chambon-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Lac du Chambon &#8211; a rapidly failing landslide that has disrupted the Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>Lac du Chambon<\/h5>\n<p>On the banks of the Lac du Chambon in the French Alps a 1 million cubic metre landslide is rapidly developing.\u00a0 This landslide is making the international news because it has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cyclingweekly.co.uk\/racing\/tour-de-france\/landslides-may-mean-the-galibier-is-cut-from-the-2015-tour-de-france-178144\">caused the organisers of the Tour de France to reroute perhaps the most famous section of all<\/a> &#8211; the <a href=\"https:\/\/fr.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/20e_%C3%A9tape_du_Tour_de_France_2015\">Alpine stage that ends with the lung-bursting climb to the ski resort of Alpe d&#8217;Huez<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The slope in question on the edge of the Lac du Chambon is important because the road along the edge of the lake bypasses it via a tunnel that passes through the landslide mass.\u00a0 This is a Google Earth perspective view &#8211; the road is the yellow line, with the tunnel section being the part of the road that is missing:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15327\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-1-e1435389309803.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15327\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15327\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-1-e1435389309803.jpg\" alt=\"Lac du Chambon\" width=\"640\" height=\"396\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-15327\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google Earth<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, there is no obvious indication of instability in this image (from 2009), but there is a large landslide scar on the left side of the mass (the tunnel portal is clearly located on the edge of the landslide scar).\u00a0 The landslide itself is now heavily disrupted, as per these images from 3France:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15328\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15328\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15328\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-2.jpg\" alt=\"Lac du Chambon\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-2.jpg 640w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-2-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-15328\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"http:\/\/france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr\/economie\/transports\/tunnel-du-chambon?r=alpes\">3France<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15331\" style=\"width: 649px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15331\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15331\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-3.jpg\" alt=\"Lac du Chambon\" width=\"639\" height=\"359\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-3.jpg 639w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-3-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-15331\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"http:\/\/france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr\/economie\/transports\/tunnel-du-chambon?r=alpes\">3France<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>In recent days the movement rate of the landslide has accelerated from 5 to 15 cm per day, suggesting that the landslide might be in a tertiary creep phase.\u00a0 However, as the <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2014\/10\/29\/mount-mannen-1\/\">Mount Mannen landslide in Norway last year demonstrated<\/a>, predicting failure is very challenging, and the team monitoring the landslide are sensibly making no firm predictions.\u00a0 Of course, it will be very challenging for the authorities if the slope does not collapse.<\/p>\n<p>There is some interesting footage of the inside of the tunnel in the video embedded in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.2alpesnet.com\/news\/the-chambon-tunnel-when-will-the-mountain-fall-685794\">this web page<\/a>, which should be visible below:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/api.dmcloud.net\/player\/embed\/4f3d114d94a6f66945000325\/558ad9aa9473997859fc12d4\/23c32d9b5ee64a11b766d5262d77cfab?exported=1\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>This is a still from the video, showing the level of internal deformation that is occurring within the landslide:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15334\" style=\"width: 417px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15334\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15334\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-4.jpg\" alt=\"Lac du Chambon\" width=\"407\" height=\"357\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-4.jpg 407w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2015\/06\/15_06-Chambon-4-300x263.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 407px) 100vw, 407px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-15334\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.2alpesnet.com\/news\/the-chambon-tunnel-when-will-the-mountain-fall-685794\">2alpesnet<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>This is of course a wonderful opportunity to get a better understanding of both the dynamics of a large slope failure and the way in which the displacement wave will develop and propagate.\u00a0 I hope that it will be possible to collect a detailed dataset and some video of the development of the failure.<\/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 the Alps a progressively failing landslide on the banks of the Lac du Chambon has required a change to the route of a famous stage of the Tour de France<!-- 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":15328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[447,144,469,274,355],"class_list":["post-15326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","tag-alps","tag-europe","tag-featured","tag-france","tag-tunnel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15326","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=15326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}