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ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16617-7 OPEN Four-dimensional surface motions of the Slumgullion landslide and quantification of hydrometeorological forcing ✉ Xie Hu 1,2 , Roland Bürgmann 1,2, William H. Schulz 3 & Eric J. Fielding 4 Landslides modify the natural landscape and cause fatalities and property damage worldwide. Quantifying landslide dynamics is challenging due to the stochastic nature of the environ- 1234567890():,; ment. With its large area of ~1 km2 and perennial motions at ~10–20 mm per day, the Slumgullion landslide in Colorado, USA, represents an ideal natural laboratory to better understand landslide behavior. Here, we use hybrid remote sensing data and methods to recover the four-dimensional surface motions during 2011–2018. We refine the boundaries of an area of ~0.35 km2 below the crest of the prehistoric landslide. We construct a mechanical framework to quantify the rheology, subsurface channel geometry, mass flow rate, and spatiotemporally dependent pore-water pressure feedback through a joint analysis of dis- placement and hydrometeorological measurements from ground, air and space. Our study demonstrates the importance of remotely characterizing often inaccessible, dangerous slopes to better understand landslides and other quasi-static mass fluxes in natural and industrial environments, which will ultimately help reduce associated hazards. 1 Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. 2 Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. 3 US Geological Survey, Denver, CO, USA. 4 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA. ✉ email: [email protected] NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | (2020) 11:2792 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16617-7 | www.nature.com/naturecommunications 1 ARTICLE NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16617-7 andslides denude mountains, transport sediments to rivers, For centuries, the Slumgullion landslide in the San Juan lakes and oceans, and modify the Earth’s surface environ- Mountains of Colorado has snaked its way downhill at ~10–20 L 5–16 ment and ecosystem. Landslides of all sizes and rates mm per day , allowing us to explore both transient and quasi represent geohazards that may lead to property damage and steady-state mass wasting processes. The original 700-year-old casualties. The hazards that landslides present and their impact failure initiated from the edge of the Cannibal Plateau, formed on Earth’s surface primarily depend on their volume and the rate Lake San Cristobal, and is currently inactive (Fig. 1). About 300 at which they move, as well as their responsiveness to hydrocli- years ago, a ~3900-m-long and 150- to 450-m-wide section of the matic variability. However, quantifying landslide dynamics is landslide reactivated from the original headscarp to a new toe challenging due to the stochastic nature of the environment (e.g., above Highway 149. The landslide deposits consist of hydro- geology, geomorphology, and vegetation), external disturbances thermally altered Tertiary volcanic rocks. (e.g., fire, climate change, earthquakes, and logging), and the Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) has been limited availability of observations (e.g., remote, surface and widely used to measure ground motions for geohazards subsurface geodetic, and geophysical and hydrological measure- research17–19, but its application at Slumgullion is challenged by ments)1–5. Knowledge of landslide behavior primarily depends on high deformation gradients. In addition, the reconstruction of 3D isolated measurements made on and within the landslides, which surface displacements depends on the availability of multiple view are often cost prohibitive or even impossible to obtain, and their angles and their distribution16,20. Here, we incorporate data from value is limited by conservative interpretations for generalizing to the ascending and descending tracks of Copernicus spaceborne the entirety of dynamically complex landslides. Incomplete C-band Sentinel-1 SAR (2017–2018) and four flight lines of the information of three-dimensional (3D) surface displacements has NASA/JPL airborne L-band Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle SAR limited our ability to infer the continuous landslide depth, (UAVSAR) (2011–2018; Fig. 1a) with a hybrid InSAR phase and interpret the driving and resisting mechanisms, and develop SAR amplitude pixel offset tracking (POT) time-series analysis accurate forecasts for landslides. Here, we compile a compre- (Supplementary Figs. 1 and 2 and Supplementary Table 1)21,22. hensive dataset of remote sensing imagery from air and space, The advance in data and method integration illuminates the meteorological records, and in situ surface (extensometer) and spatiotemporal 3D surface evolution from 1000+ individual subsurface (inclinometer) deformation measurements, allowing displacement maps (Supplementary Fig. 3), two orders of mag- us to develop a systematic framework for using detailed, tem- nitude more than previous SAR-based studies at porally variable 3D surface deformation data to quantify the Slumgullion14–16. Variations in recharge, mainly from snowmelt, underlying landslide kinematics and dynamics. drive multi-annual decelerations and accelerations, during which a Cannibal Plateau T21501 S1-T56 N Head: 1–3 Zone of T30502 stretching: 4–6 2 1 38° 3 Zone of marginal 5 149 4 pull-apart 7 6 basins: 9–10 8 Hopper 9 &neck: Inactive 11 10 7–8 12 CO toe Active toe: 11–12 T12502 37.98° Lake San Cristobal S1-T49 1 km T03501 –107.28° –107.26° –107.24° –107.22° b c Ascending T49 Descending T56 –107.26° –107.26° 38° LOS 38˚ LOS mm/day mm/day 1.6 0.3 –0.3 37.99° 37.99° –107.24° –107.24° 0.3 –0.3 –2.7 Fig. 1 Map of the Slumgullion landslide. a Landslide landscape. Red and blue boxes show swaths from Sentinel-1 ascending (T49) and descending (T56) tracks, respectively. White box shows UAVSAR swaths. Black and gray lines outline the active and inactive landslides. White diamonds show the locations of three extensometers; the borehole inclinometer was located near the center extensometer. Structural zones and kinematic elements are labeled8,9,14. Red lines show updated boundaries from this study, and dashed lines are tentative. b, c Sentinel-1 line-of-sight (LOS) displacements positive towards the satellite, superimposed on the shaded relief light detection and ranging (LiDAR) digital elevation model (DEM). Three symbols (o\x\+) show targets with time-series plots in Fig. 4a. 2 NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | (2020) 11:2792 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16617-7 | www.nature.com/naturecommunications NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16617-7 ARTICLE the head of the landslide is the most responsive. The power-law motion to east). Here, the sediments are transported along a flow theory helps reconcile the mass movement with the sub- curved track parallel to the margin between elements 1 and 2, at a surface geometry which is explicitly characterized by a novel large angle from the main stream of the slide. description of the landslide thickness, the steepness between the To systematically analyze the kinematics and mechanics of lateral and bed shear surfaces, and the tilt of the basal bed. Slumgullion, we rely on 3D velocity fields that describe the steady state, slow-moving earth flow. We obtain eight velocity measure- ments from four UAVSAR flight lines during each sortie in their Results respective azimuth and range directions. The hybrid InSAR-POT Spatial displacement patterns. The 98 scenes of Sentinel-1 SAR analysis provides us a robust 3D solution over the entire active reveal displacement details over the more slowly deforming head landslide area, with a total of 124 scenes. We represent the and toe areas of the landslide (Fig. 1b, c). The fast-moving middle deformation in a series of 77 transverse profiles (Fig. 2a and parts are not resolvable due to extreme InSAR phase gradients at Supplementary Fig. 4). The displacements in the steep upper head the available Sentinel-1 orbital period, radar wavelength, and the zone are highly variable with low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). amount of displacement over a short distance (see “Methods” for Velocity measurements become more coherent from the inter- details). We refine the boundaries of a kinematic element in an section between the head and the zone of stretching, moving at area of ~0.35 km2 below the crest of the prehistoric landslide about 2.5 mm per day. The south part of the zone of stretching (Fig. 1a), which accounts for ~1/3rd of the previously mapped moves at 7 mm per day, and elongated flank ridges extend along mobile area8,9,14. We further update the structural zones9,14: head its southeastern lateral margin (Supplementary Fig. 4). The zone (kinematic elements #1–3) exposed by extensional fractures, movement rotates westerly to the narrow hopper and neck. The zone of stretching (#4–6) characterized by broad bands of tension velocity profiles regain a symmetric pattern with rates as high as cracks and normal faults, hopper and neck (#7–8) resembling a 13 mm per day at the center. The surface topography gradually funnel, zone of marginal pull-apart basins (#9–10) accompanying develops a bump along the central axis (Supplementary Fig. 4). widening of the slide, and toe (#11–12) overriding inactive sur- The rates decrease to ≤10 mm per day in the zone of marginal faces. The current major source of debris supply appears to be on pull-apart basins, and the velocity profiles appear