From surface morphologies to inner structures: insights into hypermobility of the Nixu rock avalanche, southern Tibet, China

Abstract

Large rock avalanches often result in many deaths and catastrophic damage to infrastructure far from source. No consensus has yet been reached on mechanisms causing their extraordinarily long runout since the first study at the Elm Slide, Switzerland. Much current understanding of rock avalanche kinematics and dynamics has been gained from observations of their surface morphologies and inner structures. Based on field surveys, high-resolution satellite image interpretation, and laboratory sieving, we analyzed the ancient, earthquake-induced Nixu rock avalanche in southern Tibet, China, which has unique exposures of both morphological features and inner structures of the deposits. The study revealed that (1) the Nixu rock avalanche probably could be disintegrated into three emplacement stages, transforming from an initial deep-seated rockslide into a large secondary debris avalanche, plus a relatively small third debris avalanche. The spreading of the secondary debris avalanche contributed to the subsequent long-runout propagation. (2) The morphological features observed in successive proximal to distal exposures (such as scarps, flowbands, transverse ridges, grid grooves, hummocks, and splash zones) reflect the change in stress-strain state of debris in motion from tension, to compression, to shear and tension. (3) The complicated inner structures exposed along river banks (such as jigsaw structures, fragmented clasts, inner shear zones, conjunction faults, convoluted lamination, decollements, sand injections, and intrusions) indicate the existence of a thin basal shear zone and a pressurized entrained substrate between the substrate and rock avalanche debris. (4) This suggests turbulent flow with bulldozing in the front, but a laminar flow under a simple shear model for the main body. (5) The analysis suggests that the rock avalanche’s extraordinary mobility involves a combination of momentum transfer, substrate entrainment, liquefied basal shearing, internal shearing, and rock fragmentation.