Geological Monitoring

Geologic Monitoring is a practical, nontechnical guide for land managers, educators, and the public that synthesizes representative methods for monitoring short-term and long-term change in geologic features and landscapes. A prestigious group of subject-matter experts has carefully selected methods for monitoring sand dunes, caves and karst, rivers, geothermal features, glaciers, nearshore marine features, beaches and marshes, paleontological resources, permafrost, seismic activity, slope movements, and volcanic features and processes. Each chapter has an overview of the resource; summarizes features that could be monitored; describes methods for monitoring each feature ranging from low-cost, low-technology methods (that could be used for school groups) to higher cost, detailed monitoring methods requiring a high level of expertise; and presents one or more targeted case studies.
Monitoring slope movements
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Published:January 01, 2009
Abstract
Slope movements, including types of landslides and extremely slow soil creep (Varnes, 1978), occur throughout the United States and within many national parks. The collection of vital signs of regional landslide information, referred to as monitoring, is not only scientifically useful, but is beneficial for assessment of landslide hazards and risk, which is in turn important for regional operations and planning.
Different types of slope movement, such as fall, topple, slide, spread, and flow, can occur in a variety of materials and degrees of slopes. Specific types of landslides (Fig. 1), such as rockfall, earth slump, and debris flow, can occur depending upon the types of geologic materials and movement (Cruden and Varnes, 1996). A landslide can be caused by one or more of several factors, of which geological, morphological, physical, and human factors are the most common. The term landslide trigger refers specifically to an external stimulus, such as intense rainfall, rapid snowmelt, earthquake, volcanic eruption, or stream or coastal erosion. These stimuli initiate an immediate or near-immediate landslide movement by rapidly increasing shear stresses or porewater pressures, by ground acceleration due to seismic activity, by removing lateral support, by reducing the strength of slope materials, or by initiating debris-flow activity. Most landslides with recognized triggers are caused by precipitation: rainfall, snow meltwater, or combinations of both. In rock masses, rain and meltwater penetrate joints and produce hydrostatic pressures. In soils, the increase of pore-water pressures reduces shear resistance (Schuster and Wieczorek, 2002).
- California
- creep
- debris avalanches
- debris flows
- earthflows
- geologic hazards
- Global Positioning System
- imagery
- inclinometers
- InSAR
- instruments
- inventory
- landslides
- laser methods
- lidar methods
- mapping
- mass movements
- measurement
- methods
- monitoring
- pressuremeters
- radar methods
- risk assessment
- rockfalls
- SAR
- seismographs
- slope stability
- slopes
- United States
- velocity
- volume
- Yosemite National Park