{"id":19946,"date":"2016-10-05T06:59:43","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T06:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=19946"},"modified":"2016-10-05T06:59:43","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T06:59:43","slug":"aletsch-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2016\/10\/05\/aletsch-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Aletsch: a major developing post-glacial rockslide"},"content":{"rendered":"
Aletsch: a major developing glacial rockslide<\/h5>\n

Both Juy Bullot and Eric Bardou (many thanks to them) have alerted me to a very interesting major rockslide developing in the Aletsch region of Switzerland.\u00a0 Reports<\/a> about the slide are only in French as far as I can tell, but this is a most interesting landslide.<\/p>\n

The slide itself is at Moosfluh in the Riederalp, Canton du Valais, above the left flank if the Aletsch Glacier.\u00a0 This is a Google Earth image of the site, although note that the image is seven years old:<\/p>\n

\"Google

Google Earth imagery from 2009 of the site of the Aletsch landslide in Switzerland<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

Le Nouvelliste<\/a> has a brief article on the landslide (in French of course).\u00a0 this is my translation, with help from Google because I’m lazy!,:<\/p>\n

A landslide in Moosfluh on the left bank of the Aletsch glacier has greatly accelerated in recent weeks. <\/span>The hiking trails in the sector have been closed by the municipality of Riederalp with support from the canton.\u00a0 <\/span>Numerous cracks and a few rockfalls have been observed at Moosfluh on the left bank of the Aletsch glacier. <\/span>The phenomenon is being monitored in detail. <\/span>The area concerned is about 1 square kilometre. <\/span>The moving mass has a volume of more than 200 million cubic metres and is moving more than 20 cm per day.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A rapid collapse of the entire mass seems at this stage very unlikely. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They have this image of the site:<\/p>\n

\"Image

Image of the developing landslide at Aletsch in Switzerland, via Etat Du Valais and Le Nouvelliste<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

Rhone FM<\/a> has a view from a different angle:<\/p>\n

\"Aletsch

An image of the Aletsch landslide, via Rhone FM<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

This is a wonderful opportunity to study the development of\u00a0 progressive failure in a large rockslope.\u00a0 Predicting the time of failure is fraught with difficulty, and it is good that no bold forecasts are being made at this stage.\u00a0 A particularly interesting aspect of this landslide is that its location is close to the terminus of the retreating Aletsch Glacier.\u00a0 Wikipedia reports<\/a> that in some years this glacier is retreating at 100 m per year.\u00a0 It has long been hypothesised that major rockslides may be more likely when slopes are debuttressed by glacial retreat.\u00a0 That may be the case here.<\/p>\n

Other posts on a similar topic<\/h5>\n