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Mechanism of the catastrophic June 2017 landslide at Xinmo Village, Songping River, Sichuan Province, China

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Abstract

On June 24, 2017, a catastrophic landslide (Xinmo landslide) occurred on the left bank of Songping river in Diexi town, Sichuan Province, China. Based on field investigations, this paper tries to reveal the cause and mechanism of the initiation and development of the Xinmo landslide. Xinmo landslide is located in the so called “Minshan block.” This tectonic block is very active and generates many earthquakes. Among them, the 1933 Diexi Ms 7.5 earthquake which had an indispensable effect on the occurrence of the Xinmo landslide, whose distance to the recent Xinmo landslide is only 8.7 km. The 1933 earthquake triggered the collapse of the Qianxin gully, which damaged the rock mass forming the source of the Xinmo landslide and creating a free prominent ridge. The later 1976 Songpan Ms 7.2 earthquake and the 2008 Wenchuan Ms 8.0 earthquake further damaged the integrity of the rock mass in the source area of the 2017 Xinmo landslide. The Xinmo landslide developed on a typical bedding dip slope with metasandstone intercalated with a few thin bedded slate layers. The slate intercalation gives the slope a very low shear strength in the dip direction and the long term rainfall may have softened the slip zone and the locked section. These two aspects have promoted the occurrence of Xinmo landslide.

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude for the financial assistance. We thank Professor Xu Qiang, Pei Xiangjun, Ren Guangming for very useful photos, and Manager Gong Ziqiang for the field investigations. We also thank Prof. Theo van Asch for his linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript, and thank the Handing Editor (Jia-Jyun Dong) and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions which greatly improved the quality of the manuscript.

Funding

This study has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41521002) and the Open Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironmental Protection (Chengdu University of Technology) (SKLGP2015Z001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610059, China

    Yunsheng Wang, Bo Zhao & Jia Li

Authors
  1. Yunsheng Wang
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  2. Bo Zhao
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  3. Jia Li
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bo Zhao.

Appendix A. The calculation method of the connectivity of rock mass

Appendix A. The calculation method of the connectivity of rock mass

Brandwidth projection method is adopted to calculate the connectivity of rock mass. Brandwidth projection method mainly refers to the proportion of effective fractures along a certain shear direction in effective statistical region (Zhong and Nie 2003), as shown in Fig. 16. The corresponding mathematical expressions are as follows:

$$ \mathrm{Connectivity}=\mathrm{Total}\ \mathrm{Projection}\ \mathrm{Line}/\mathrm{Total}\ \mathrm{length} $$
(1)
$$ \mathrm{Total}\ \mathrm{Projection}\ \mathrm{Line}={\mathrm{Projection}\ \mathrm{Line}}_1+{\mathrm{Projection}\ \mathrm{Line}}_2+\dots +{\mathrm{Projection}\ \mathrm{Line}}_n\kern0.5em $$
(2)
Fig. 16
figure 16

The concept of connectivity and its calculation method

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Where Total length is the length of base line, Total Projection Line is the sum of Projection Lines, Projection Line is the length of the projection from the fractures to the base line and the specific projection method can refer to Fig. 16.

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Wang, Y., Zhao, B. & Li, J. Mechanism of the catastrophic June 2017 landslide at Xinmo Village, Songping River, Sichuan Province, China. Landslides 15, 333–345 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-017-0927-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-017-0927-3

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