ALBERT

Description: Our concept of progressive rock slope failures is on the one hand embedded in aggregated subcritical crack growth mechanisms and on the other sensitive to environmental conditions, especially water. To anticipate failure dynamics in rock slopes, it is a key requirement to reveal the influence of water on subcritical crack growth mechanisms and material properties. We present experimental data on the time-dependent deformation of an exemplary rock, Carrara marble. We employed inverted single-edge notch bending creep tests on large Carrara marble samples to mimic an open joint system with controlled water supply. Constant stress was applied in two steps approaching 22–85% of a previously determined critical baseline stress. Introducing calcite-saturated water to subcritical stressed samples caused an immediate increase in strain by up to an order of magnitude. Time-dependent accumulation of inelastic damage at the notch tip occurred in wet and dry samples at all load levels. Subcritical crack growth and the evolution of localized intergranular fractures are enhanced if water is present and readily approach tertiary creep when loaded above 80%. The immediate strain response is attributed to the reduction of surface energy and diffusion of the water into the rock. The resultant more compliant and weaker rheology can even turn the subcritical stress into a critical state. Over time, subcritical and chemically enhanced mechanisms progressively alter especially grain boundaries, which become the key controls of progressive failure in Carrara marble. ©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

Description: Knowledge of the internal state of rock is key to anticipate its rheological response and susceptibility to external factors. Time-dependent failure in rock is controlled by internal state changes, like damage accumulation or strength degradation. But assessing internal states and changes thereof, nondestructively and independent of external forcing is not straightforward. Residual strains, measured with neutron diffraction techniques are used as a proxy for the internal state in material sciences. We investigated its potential for progressive rock failure by measuring residual strain states of an untested and three mechanically and chemomechanically pretested Carrara marble samples. We collected neutron diffraction data for three crystal lattice planes {10̅14}, {0006}, and {11̅20}. Measurements showed an initial overall contractional spatially homogeneous residual unit cell volume strain state of about −400 μstrain, though magnitudes were strongly partitioned among measured crystal lattice planes. However, they are equal within the spatial orientations of the intact sample. For the pretested samples, the induction and relaxation of strains varied spatially with the pretesting stress field and environmental conditions. The vertical extent of superposition of the initial residual strain state was greatest in wet samples, the magnitude of induced extensional strain highest in the dry sample. This indicates chemomechanically enhanced subcritical crack growth with concomitant residual strain relaxation as well as the mitigation of extensional strain built up by the presence of water during pretesting. Our experiments show that residual strain has a significant potential to provide insights into past and actual internal states to anticipate progressive rock failure.

Description: Knowledge of the internal state of rock is key to anticipate its rheological response and susceptibility to external factors. Time‐dependent failure in rock is controlled by internal state changes, like damage accumulation or strength degradation. But assessing internal states and changes thereof, non‐destructively and independent of external forcing is not straight forward. Residual strains, measured with neutron diffraction techniques are used as a proxy for the internal state in material sciences. We investigated its potential for progressive rock failure by measuring residual strain states of an untested and three mechanically and chemo‐mechanically pretested Carrara marble samples. We collected neutron diffraction data for three crystal lattice planes {10̅14}, {0006}, and {11̅20}. Measurements showed an initial overall contractional spatially homogeneous residual unit cell volume strain state of about ‐400μstrain, though magnitudes were strongly partitioned among measured crystal lattice planes. However, they are equal within the spatial orientations of the intact sample. For the pretested samples, the induction and relaxation of strains varied spatially with the pretesting stress field and environmental conditions. The vertical extent of superposition of the initial residual strain state was greatest in wet samples, the magnitude of induced extensional strain highest in the dry sample. This indicates chemo‐mechanically enhanced subcritical crack growth with concomitant residual strain relaxation as well as the mitigation of extensional strain built up by the presence of water during pretesting. Our experiments show, that residual strain has a significant potential to provide insights into past and actual internal states to anticipate progressive rock failure.

Description: Rock glaciers are receiving increased attention as a potential source of water and indicator of climate change in periglacial landscapes. They consist of an ice-debris mixture, which creeps downslope. Although rock glaciers are a wide-spread feature on the Tibetan Plateau, characteristics such as its ice fraction are unknown as a superficial debris layer inhibits remote assessments. We investigate one rock glacier in the semiarid western Nyainqêntanglha range (WNR) with a multi-method approach, which combines geophysical, geological and geomorphological field investigations with remote sensing techniques. Long-term kinematics of the rock glacier are detected by 4-year InSAR time series analysis. The ice content and the active layer are examined by electrical resistivity tomography, ground penetrating radar, and environmental seismology. Short-term activity (11-days) is captured by a seismic network. Clast analysis shows a sorting of the rock glacier's debris. The rock glacier has three zones, which are defined by the following characteristics: (a) Two predominant lithology types are preserved separately in the superficial debris patterns, (b) heterogeneous kinematics and seismic activity, and (c) distinct ice fractions. Conceptually, the studied rock glacier is discussed as an endmember of the glacier—debris-covered glacier—rock glacier continuum. This, in turn, can be linked to its location on the semiarid lee-side of the mountain range against the Indian summer monsoon. Geologically preconditioned and glacially overprinted, the studied rock glacier is suggested to be a recurring example for similar rock glaciers in the WNR. This study highlights how geology, topography and climate influence rock glacier characteristics and development.

Description: Gravitational mass wasting prediction requires understanding of the factors controlling failure. Prior to slope failure, cracks in the weakened rock are thought to grow and coalesce, eventually forming a continuous failure plane. Here, we apply a hidden Markov machine learning model to seismic data, revealing the temporal evolution of cracks prior to a major rockslide event in the Swiss Alps. After prolonged linear increase of the crack cumulative number, an S-shaped crack rate pattern occurred in the day before the rockslide. A simple mechanistic model can explain this behaviour, showing that total crack boundary length is the key factor controlling failure plane evolution immediately before mass movement. Our findings imply that cracks should be treated as 2-D, rather than 1-D objects, and that slope failure can be driven predominantly by internal rather than external processes. Our model offers a novel, physically based approach for early warning of slope failures.

Description: Bedrock incision by rivers is commonly driven by the impacts of moving bedload particles. The speed of incision is modulated by rock properties, which is quantified within a parameter known as erodibility that scales the erosion rate to the erosive action of the flow. Although basic models for the geotechnical controls on rock erodibility have been suggested, large scatter and trends in the remaining relationships indicate that they are incompletely understood. Here, we conducted dedicated laboratory experiments measuring erodibility using erosion mills. In parallel, we measured uniaxial compressive strength, tensile strength, Young's modulus, bulk density, and the Poisson's ratio for the tested lithologies. We find that under the same flow conditions, erosion rates of samples from the same lithology can vary by a factor of up to 60. This indicates that rock properties that may vary over short distances within the same rock can exert a strong control on its erosional properties. The geotechnical properties of the tested lithologies are strongly cross-correlated, preventing a purely empirical determination of their controls on erodibility. The currently prevailing model predicts that erosion rates should scale linearly with Young's modulus and inversely with the square of the tensile strength. We extend this model using first-principle physical arguments, taking into account the geotechnical properties of the impactor. The extended model provides a better description of the data than the existing model. Yet, the fit is far from satisfactory. We suggest that the ratio of mineral grain size to the impactor diameter presents a strong control on erodibility that has not been quantified so far. We also discuss how our laboratory results upscale to real landscapes and long timescales. For both a revised stream power incision model and a sediment-flux-dependent incision model, we suggest that long-term erosion rates scale linearly with erodibility and that, within this theoretical framework, relative laboratory measurements of erodibility can be applied at the landscape scale.