Two comparable earthquakes produced greatly different coseismic landslides: The 2015 Gorkha, Nepal and 2008 Wenchuan, China events

Chong Xu; Xiwei Xu; Yingying Tian; Lingling Shen; Qi Yao; Xueqiang Huang; Junxue Ma; Xi Chen; Siyuan Ma

doi:10.1007/s12583-016-0684-6

Volume 27 Issue 6

Nov 2016

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Journal of Earth Science > 2016 > 27(6): 1008-1015.

Chong Xu, Xiwei Xu, Yingying Tian, Lingling Shen, Qi Yao, Xueqiang Huang, Junxue Ma, Xi Chen, Siyuan Ma. Two comparable earthquakes produced greatly different coseismic landslides: The 2015 Gorkha, Nepal and 2008 Wenchuan, China events. Journal of Earth Science, 2016, 27(6): 1008-1015. doi: 10.1007/s12583-016-0684-6

Citation:

Chong Xu, Xiwei Xu, Yingying Tian, Lingling Shen, Qi Yao, Xueqiang Huang, Junxue Ma, Xi Chen, Siyuan Ma. Two comparable earthquakes produced greatly different coseismic landslides: The 2015 Gorkha, Nepal and 2008 Wenchuan, China events. Journal of Earth Science, 2016, 27(6): 1008-1015. doi: 10.1007/s12583-016-0684-6

Citation:

Chong Xu, Xiwei Xu, Yingying Tian, Lingling Shen, Qi Yao, Xueqiang Huang, Junxue Ma, Xi Chen, Siyuan Ma. Two comparable earthquakes produced greatly different coseismic landslides: The 2015 Gorkha, Nepal and 2008 Wenchuan, China events. Journal of Earth Science, 2016, 27(6): 1008-1015. doi: 10.1007/s12583-016-0684-6

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Two comparable earthquakes produced greatly different coseismic landslides: The 2015 Gorkha, Nepal and 2008 Wenchuan, China events

doi: 10.1007/s12583-016-0684-6

1.
Key Laboratory of Active Tectonics and Volcano, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, 100029, China
2.
Beijing Meteorological Information Center, Beijing Meteorological Service, Beijing, 100089, China
3.
China Earthquake Networks Center, Beijing, 100045, China
4.
School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, China

More Information

Corresponding author: Chong Xu: xuchong@ies.ac.cn; Xiwei Xu: xiweixu@vip.sina.com
Received Date: 10 May 2016
Accepted Date: 30 Sep 2016
Publish Date: 01 Dec 2016

Abstract

Abstract

The 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal and the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake in China occurred at the south and southeast margins of the Tibetan Plateau, respectively. Both earthquakes had similar magnitudes of Mw 7.8 and 7.9, caused catastrophic loss of life and damage to property, and generated tens of thousands of landslides. Comparisons of pre- and post-quake satellite images supported by field investigations show that the Gorkha Earthquake triggered at least 2 064 large landslides (defined as covering an area ≥10 000 m²) over a ~35 600 km² region with a volume of (444–584)×10⁶ (average 509×10⁶) m³ and total area of 44.78×10⁶ m². In contrast, the Wenchuan Earthquake triggered 25 580 large landslides over a region of ~44 000 km² with a volume of (7 128–9 479)×10⁶ (average 8 219×10⁶) m³ and a total area of about 670.65×10⁶ m². Several controlling factors including topographic relief, slope steepness, and regional peak ground acceleration (PGA) were investigated to try to explain the great differences between the number, volume and area of the coseismic landslides associated with the two similar earthquakes. We found that the differences primarily arose from an unexpected factor, the dip angle of the seismogenic fault. This discovery should aid understanding the failure mechanisms of quake-triggered landslides, and suggests that more factors should be taken into consideration in estimating coseismic landslide volumes from earthquake magnitudes.
- Gorkha Earthquake,
- Wenchuan Earthquake,
- landslide,
- dip angle,
- seismogenic fault

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References(42)

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