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- Title
Temporal and spatial variations in periglacial soil movements on alpine crest slopes.
- Authors
Norikazu Matsuoka
- Abstract
This paper describes up to ten years of continuous monitoring of frost heave, creep and associated parameters on high mountain crest slopes in the Japanese and Swiss Alps, aiming to evaluate spatial and interannual variations in the rates and controls of soil movement. Shallow frost creep re?ecting diurnal frost heave activity dominates the crest slopes that lack a vegetation mat and have a thin debris mantle with good drainage. Seasonal frost heave activity can induce slightly deeper movement where ?ne soil exists below the depth reached by diurnal freezethaw penetration, although the shallow bedrock impedes movements below 20 cm depth. As a result, downslope velocity pro?les display strong concavity with surface velocities of 250 cm a-1. The frost creep rates vary spatially, depending on the soil texture, slope gradient, frequency of temperature cycling across 0 C and moisture availability during freezethaw periods. Soil movements recur in every freezethaw period, although with some interannual variations affected by the length of seasonal snow cover and the occurrence of precipitation during freezethaw periods. The Swiss Alps encounter more signi?cant interannual variations than the Japanese Alps, re?ecting the large variability of the annual snow regime. Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
- Subjects
SLOPES (Soil mechanics); SOIL mechanics; EMBANKMENTS; MARINE geotechnics
- Publication
Earth Surface Processes & Landforms, 2005, Vol 30, Issue 1, p41
- ISSN
0197-9337
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/esp.1125