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Rapid sequestration of rock avalanche deposits within glaciers

Dunning, S.A.; Rosser, N.J.; McColl, S.T.; Reznichenko, N.V.

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Authors

S.A. Dunning

S.T. McColl

N.V. Reznichenko



Abstract

Topographic development in mountainous landscapes is a complex interplay between tectonics, climate and denudation. Glaciers erode valleys to generate headwall relief, and hillslope processes control the height and retreat of the peaks. The magnitude–frequency of these landslides and their long-term ability to lower mountains above glaciers is poorly understood; however, small, frequent rockfalls are currently thought to dominate. The preservation of rarer, larger, landslide deposits is exceptionally short-lived, as they are rapidly reworked. The 2013 Mount Haast rock avalanche that failed from the slopes of Aoraki/Mount Cook, New Zealand, onto the glacier accumulation zone below was invisible to conventional remote sensing after just 3 months. Here we use sub-surface data to reveal the now-buried landslide deposit, and suggest that large landslides are the primary hillslope erosion mechanism here. These data show how past large landslides can be identified in accumulation zones, providing an untapped archive of erosive events in mountainous landscapes.

Citation

Dunning, S., Rosser, N., McColl, S., & Reznichenko, N. (2015). Rapid sequestration of rock avalanche deposits within glaciers. Nature Communications, 6, Article 7964. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8964

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 19, 2015
Online Publication Date Aug 19, 2015
Publication Date Aug 1, 2015
Deposit Date May 19, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Nature Communications
Publisher Nature Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 6
Article Number 7964
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8964
Keywords Earth sciences, Geology and geophysics

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Published Journal Article (1.5 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/





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