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SEISMIC MONITORING OF S´ECHILIENNE ROCKSLIDE (FRENCH ALPS): ANALYSIS OF SEISMIC SIGNALS AND THEIR CORRELATION WITH RAINFALLS (2009)

In the French Alps, S´echilienne rockslide is one of the natural phenomena presenting the highest risk in terms of socio-economical outcomes. This rockslide has been active for a few decades, and has been instrumented since 1985. The current very active volume of this rockslide is estimated to be up to 5 millions m3, located on the border of a slowly moving mass reaching 50 to 100 millions m3. The velocity of the most active zone has reached 1.4 m/yr in 2008, about twice the value of 2000. A seismic network was installed in May 2007 on this rockslide. It has now recorded several thousands events, mostly rockfalls, but also hundreds of local and regional earthquakes, which can be distinguished and classified from their signal characteristics. Rockfalls and micro-seismicity, which occur in burst of activity, are found to be weakly, but significantly, correlated with rainfall. Rockfall occurrence increases linearly with precipitations, with however strong fluctuations of the numbers of rockfalls per day for the same rainfall intensity. No threshold was found for rainfall triggering, even one mm of rain being enough to trigger rockfalls. Rockfall activity starts immediately during a rainfall episode, and lasts for several days after the rainfall. Rain also induces strong accelerations of the rockslide movement, which also start quasi instantaneously, and last for about 1 month.
Reference:
Journal of Geophysical Research (Impact Factor: 3.17)
Organization:
Laboratoire de G´eophysique Interne et Tectonophysique, Universit´e Joseph Fourier and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Grenoble, France
France
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