{"id":4296,"date":"2012-02-15T17:42:16","date_gmt":"2012-02-15T17:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=4296"},"modified":"2012-02-15T17:42:16","modified_gmt":"2012-02-15T17:42:16","slug":"background-to-the-tumbi-quarry-landslide-so-how-can-a-quarry-cause-a-landslide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2012\/02\/15\/background-to-the-tumbi-quarry-landslide-so-how-can-a-quarry-cause-a-landslide\/","title":{"rendered":"Background to the Tumbi Quarry landslide &#8211; so how can a quarry cause a landslide?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A question that has arisen a few times about the Tumbi Quarry landslide in Papua New Guinea is why it is that a quarry can increase landslide occurrence.\u00a0 The first point to be made is that many quarries, when properly managed, do not cause slope instability.\u00a0 However, some of the most spectacular landslides are caused by mines or quarries.\u00a0 Two come immediately to mind &#8211; this is the Yallourn open cast mine landslide in Australia (I have never seen one like this anywhere else!):<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-4297\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2012\/02\/15\/background-to-the-tumbi-quarry-landslide-so-how-can-a-quarry-cause-a-landslide\/12_02-yallourn-1\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4297\" title=\"12_02 Yallourn 1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/02\/12_02-Yallourn-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"682\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/02\/12_02-Yallourn-1.jpg 682w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/02\/12_02-Yallourn-1-300x175.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And this (courtesy of Caner Zanbak), is the <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2011\/03\/09\/the-astonishing-collolar-coalfield-landslide-in-turkey\/\">Collolar lignite mine landslide in Turkey two years ago<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-4298\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2012\/02\/15\/background-to-the-tumbi-quarry-landslide-so-how-can-a-quarry-cause-a-landslide\/12_02-collolar\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4298\" title=\"12_02 Collolar\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/02\/12_02-Collolar-e1329326592323.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"269\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So why do quarry walls fail?\u00a0 There are many reasons, but the most important include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Almost always the quarry walls are cut more steeply than the existing slope.\u00a0 If this slope is too steep for the rocks in question a slip can develop;<\/li>\n<li>Cutting the slope sometimes &#8220;daylights&#8221; (exposes the toe of) an existing discontinuity or plane of weakness, along which sliding can occur.\u00a0 In Collonar above it is likely that sliding occurred on a pre-existing weak layer;<\/li>\n<li>Cutting the slope can change the groundwater conditions, which can lead to pore pressure build up in weaker areas;<\/li>\n<li>Blasting the slope can cause fractures to develop that allow the release of a block;<\/li>\n<li>Cutting the slope can remove layers of strong materials, exposing weaker strata that are prone to failure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The design of quarry walls, and the maintenance of them, is a highly specialised task into which responsible operators invest a great deal of resource.\u00a0 As a result monitoring of quarry wall movement is a key part of quarry operations, and many quarries operate safety systems to allow them to evacuate is instability develops.\u00a0 As a result, catastrophic quarry wall failures remain rare.\u00a0 Of course it is not clear that any of these are the case at Tumbi Quarry, but these are some of the processes that the investigation should be considering.<\/p>\n<p>It would be good to have some examples of quarry or open cast mine landslides highlighted in the comments.\u00a0 Would anyone like to suggest an example or two?<\/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>A review of why a quarry can cause a landslide, background context for the Tumbi Quarry landslide in Papua New Guinea<!-- 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":4297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[469,959,313],"class_list":["post-4296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","category-uncategorized","tag-featured","tag-landslide-report","tag-papua-new-guinea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296","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=4296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}