{"id":17448,"date":"2016-01-17T08:27:45","date_gmt":"2016-01-17T08:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=17448"},"modified":"2016-01-17T08:27:45","modified_gmt":"2016-01-17T08:27:45","slug":"arauco-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2016\/01\/17\/arauco-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Landslides in Chile Part 1: Arauco"},"content":{"rendered":"
Landslides in Chile Part 1: Arauco<\/h5>\n

I have spent the last week in Chile working with colleagues from the University of Chile<\/a> and Leeds University<\/a>, plus Melanie Froude<\/a>, my post-doctoral researcher at UEA, on our Newton Fund<\/a> \/ NERC<\/a> project on earthquake-induced landslides.\u00a0 Over the next few days I’ll post some images of the landslides that we are studying.\u00a0 One of field areas is in Arauco<\/a>, about two hours south of Concepcion, which was affected a M=8.8 earthquake on 27th February 2010<\/a>.\u00a0 This earthquake caused extensive damage, most notably as a result of a tsunami that affected the coastal areas.<\/p>\n

As part of our project we are building an inventory of landslides triggered by that earthquake.\u00a0 Our field trip\u00a0 was to look at these landslides and to collect some samples for the detailed testing that is being undertaken at Durham University.\u00a0 The samples are from this set of very interesting coastal landslides:<\/p>\n

\"Arauco<\/a>

Coastal landslides near to Arauco<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

These are steep but shallow landslides that caused damage to the coastal highway.\u00a0 Our main study landslide is the one in the middle.\u00a0 Further around the headland there are some more interesting landslides.\u00a0 This one was initially triggered by the earthquake, but then has reactivated and enlarged, damaging the new road:<\/p>\n

\"Arauco<\/a>

An inland landslide near to Arauco<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

On the same road there is a section that crosses a much older but very active landslide.\u00a0 This is a soil \/ earthflow type of slide:<\/p>\n

\"Arauco<\/a>

Highway landslide near to Arauco<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

This landslide is having a very significant effect on the highway.\u00a0 Most notably, the lower portion has displaced and damaged the retaining wall:<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Arauco<\/a>

A retaining wall toppled by a landslide in Arauco<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

Dealing with multihazards is very challenging,\u00a0 The coastal communities in this area can be subject to earthquake shaking, tsunamis and landslides.\u00a0 Sometimes the advice that is given to avoid two hazards is mutually contradictory.\u00a0 This is a nice example, where the evacuation route for a tsunami takes the citizens right into the potential path of rockfalls.\u00a0 In the event of a large earthquake this slope is likely to be unstable, with aftershocks bringing material down.\u00a0 The affected population might have a terrible decision to make:<\/p>\n

\"Arauco<\/a>

Tsunami evacuation route and rockfall site near to Arauco<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In September 2010 a M=8.8 earthquake struck Arauco in Chile. These landslides are part of our Newton Fund project on earthquake induced landslides in Chile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":17453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[1046,23,469,983,122,128],"class_list":["post-17448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-images","tag-chile","tag-earthquake","tag-featured","tag-landslide-images","tag-south-america","tag-tsunami"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17448","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=17448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}