The nature and transport of the fine‐grained component of Swift Creek Landslide, Northwest Washington

Abstract

AbstractExtreme sedimentation in Swift Creek, located in the Cascades foothills in NW Washington (48°55′N, 122°16′W), results from erosion of the oversteepened, unvegetated toe of a large (55 hectares) active landslide. Deposition of landslide‐derived sediment has necessitated costly mitigation projects in the channel including annual dredging and temporary sediment traps in an attempt to reduce the risk of flooding and damage to man‐made structures downstream. This study attempts to understand the process of sediment production along with the corresponding erosion rates of the sediment source to help with the development of mitigation plans and construction of optimal sediment reservoirs.The bedload and suspended sediment in the creek are a direct result of the weathering process of the serpentinitic bedrock underlying the landslide. The serpentinite does not weather to smectite clay, as previously thought. Instead, it weathers to asbestiform chrysotile with minor amounts of chlorite, illite and hydrotalcite, all of which occur in clay seeps on the unvegetated surface of the landslide. The chrysotile fibers average 2 µm in length and make up at least 50%, by volume, of the suspended load transported in Swift Creek. This study does not address the environmental or health implications of the asbestiform chrysotile transport or deposition.During the sampled time between February 2005 and February 2006, 127 discrete suspended sediment samples were collected and discharge was measured 66 times. The suspended sediment concentrations ranged from 0·02 g L−1 to 41·6 g L−1 and the discharge ranged from 0·0 m3 s−1 to 0·5 m3 s−1. A nonlinear functional model estimated the total suspended sediment flux from detailed precipitation records and discrete suspended sediment concentration and discharge measurements to be 910 t km−2 yr−1. When the suspended sediment flux is coupled with estimates of downstream deposition of coarse sediment, the estimated erosion rate for the entire Swift Creek landslide is 158 mm yr−1. The majority of the material entering Swift Creek is presumed to originate on the unvegetated toe of the landslide, for which the erosion rate is thus approximately 1 m yr−1. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.