A Discussion on Landslides in Loess; Some Large Movements in Metastable Ground

Ian Smalley, Ken OHara-Dhand Giotto Loess Research Group, Geography Department, Leicester University, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK (ijs4@le.ac.uk) Tom Dijkstra Civil and Building Engineering Department, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3BU, UK (t.a.dijkstra@lboro.ac.uk)

Abstract Two large and famous landslides were loess landslides. Both occurred in China. The 1920 Gansu slide was triggered by a large earthquake; the Saleshan slide was on a slightly smaller, more accessible, scale. Five factors are considered which relate to loess slides: 1. moderate thickness of deposit, rather than great thickness; 2. some relief, some potential energy is required; 3. An impervious sliding plane for initial movement, bedrock or palaeosol; 4. Open soil structure, high voids ratio, metastability, this is the critical loessic factor; 5. Wet base, water is significant for initial action; 6. earthquake trigger, may be necessary, may be
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observed. Loess landslides are best known in China but observed in Danube bank locations, and in Central Asia. The remarkable nature of loess ground contributes to landslide activity, in particular the open airfall structure which allows the initial structural collapse (like hydroconsolidation) which allows the slide to develop. The Saleshan slide is considered in moderate detail; the 1920 slide was so huge that it cannot be considered typical, and little detail is available about slide mechanics. The open structure and hydroconsolidation action are the critical factors underpinning the special nature of a loess flowslide. The aspect of loess which allows hydroconsolidation also controls the typical loess landslide. Keywords: loess flowslides, loess material, soil structure collapse, hydroconsolidation, short range bonds, primary mineral particles

Introduction Comprehensive studies (Derbyshire et al 1994,1999, Derbyshire 2001, Dijkstra et al 1994, Dijkstra 2000) have provided an excellent overview of landslide problems in the Chinese loess, particularly loess in the region of Lanzhou, in Gansu. The large monograph (Derbyshire et al 1999) gives a

remarkably detailed discussion of loess and the Gansu region and the classic large loess landslides so that it is probably the most complete treatment of any particular landslide type so far published. This is the touchstone for further studies on loess landslides; this current review and study will focus on mechanisms and structures; this is a study of ground material, and a consideration of factors for further investigation, such as particle arrangements and the nature of loess material and the links between hydroconsolidation and landslide behaviour. The nature of loess material plays a large part in determining the nature of the landslide events, but the well known slides are so large that the purely loessic factors may be obscured by the general enormity of the event. Gansu was the site of the huge earth movements in 1920 when a large earthquake(Richter 8+) mobilised large amounts of ground, said to be equivalent in area to the nation of Belgium. The Chinese loess still offers a landslide hazard(which Chinese investigators have recently been emphasising; Zhang et al 2002, Zhang & Wang 1995, Wu & Wang 2006, Xu et al 2007), and benefits from continued investigation.The Dijkstra(2000) monograph touches on many material problems related to the Chinese landslide situation and our considerations follow from his

observations. Another location where loess landsliding presents continuing problems is in the Danube basin, in Central Europe. The Danube basin is classic loess country (see Smalley & Leach 1978) and the Danube bluffs are the sites for much landslide activity. The slide at Dunauvarous in 1969 gave rise to much literature(Pecsi 1971, Pecsi & Scheuer 1979, Pecsi et al 1979, Ujvari et al 2009) and these Danubian slides provide another thread for our review. The third region to be identified is Central Asia, largely because of the recent comprehensive study of Havenith and Bourdeau (2010), but also the studies in Tajikistan by Ishihara et al(1990) and Evans et al(2009). In the USGS world overview of large landslides there are two loess slides on the current list, the 1920 Gansu slide at no.4 and the 1983 Saleshan slide at no.27 (the slides are listed chronologically); because of their ranking among the most significant landslides they must receive attention in this review. For convenience they will be referred to as the 1920 slide and the Saleshan slide. Both were long-run-out flowslides, and their existence as dynamical events depended on their occurring in loess ground. The Saleshan slide can be the main focus because there is more detail available about this particular slide event, and it could be considered that the 1920 event was so vast that it was

atypical; all sorts of features and factors were involved in this slide, which may have obscured the loessic contribution. The relationship between the loess ground and the nature of the slide is the topic of this review, and it is a reductionist view with a focus on loessic properties which are central to a particular flow. There is a large amount of loess ground in the world but the relevant regions in North America, South America and New Zealand do not seem to suffer particularly from landslides. Loess landslides present problems where loess and people coincide, in fact loess presents geotechnical problems wherever loess and people coincide. The tunnel gullies which form in the New Zealand loess are essentially a problem when they form beneath someones house. This is why most of the literature on geotechnology and engineering geology of loess is in Russian (read Trofimov 2001 for a flavour of this). The western part of the Soviet Union was a region with much loess and many people, but relatively few loess landslides. The major problem in the Soviet Union was subsidence, the loess ground structure collapsed on loading and wetting and foundation failures ensued. These were ground failures caused by the peculiar nature of the loess ground; the question that has to be asked with respect to loess landslides is- how much does the peculiar nature of

loess ground specify the type and nature of slope failure that occurs in it? The large flowslide such as Gansu 1920 or Saleshan 1983 is relatively well known although it is only recently that discussion has taken place on any large scale about the exact mechanisms of these very large flowslides, and there is a perceived danger in parts of China that the threat of large landslides is still present. There might be some benefit to be gained by comparing loess flowslides to quick clay flowslides; identifying common factors may aid in the understanding of the failure and flow mechanisms. We need, in particular, to examine the nature of loess and consider the types of landslide that arise because of the peculiar nature of loess. There is a tradition in geotechnology of generating failures by not understanding the nature of the ground material which is being used in construction. Perhaps the most famous of these is the failure to understand the problems of loess material construction when building the Teton Dam in Idaho (Smalley & Dijkstra 1991), and this was remoulded loess material, the soil-structural danger had been removed. The Saleshan landslide

Cao(1986) has provided an excellent study of the 1983 Saleshan slide, and more attention should be directed at this particular paper. The large slide at Saleshan occurred suddenly at 17-46 on 7 March 1983. This came as a great shock to the local people (no precursor effects). Cao reports that there was a sound like thunder, and the soil and smoke went up into the sky and the giant mountain body quickly rushed to the foot of the mountain 100m away, and blocked the Baxie river. The devastating slide destroyed four villages, killed 237 people, buried large amounts of cultivated land, and seriously damaged to small nearby reservoir. Cao has produced a classification model for the slides in the Baxie river basin, with four basic types of slide defined. In our limited view of loess slides it is the type 1 slide which is of concern; this is the slide which takes places wholly in the loess layers, free of complicating geological factors. Cao calls it the single-layer structure slide; it is close to our default model loess slide, where the slide is initiated by structural collapse of a hydroconsolidating lower layer. Cao provides a macro-vision of loess slides (a detailed and perceptive vision) but he does not discuss failure at the soil structure level.

Loess material and loess ground Loess is a silty, quartz rich, airfall, Quaternary, unsaturated, metastable, collapsible, landscape-draping sediment. In some parts of the world striking soil formation has occurred in the upper regions and chernozem zones such as the Black Earth region of Ukraine and S.W.Russia have formed. The defining characteristics can be viewed from a variety of directions. The defining characteristic of a loess deposit is the open, metastable packing of silt-sized primary mineral particles. The default loess particle is a quartz fragment with a diameter in the order of 30um; other mineralogy is present but the vision of loess is based on quartz silt. The typical quartz silt particle has a flat, blade shape; studies on particle shape (Smalley 1966, Rogers & Smalley 1993, Howarth 2010) have suggested that a typical particle will have a side ratio of 8: 5: 2- which gives a remarkably flat particle. These flat particles can form a very open structure after deposition by an airfall mechanism- this is the essence of a loess deposit. The open metastable structure means that, relative to other ground, there is an excess energy available for geodynamic activity. In a loess landslide, and in a quick clay landslide, the initial structural collapse initiates the whole consequent activity. The structural nature of loess ground makes it

worthwhile to consider loess as a special material when investigating ground movements and failures.

Particle arrangements in loess deposits The arrangement(packing) of the particles in a sediment or engineering soil has an effect on properties. Packing is an elusive property and a satisfactory method of measuring packing and manipulating the parameters has never been devised. But is is readily apparent that in certain ground systems the particle packing has a large part to play. (for reviews of packing in ground systems see Rogers et al.1994b, Allen 1982, Dijkstra et al.1995). It can be argued that packing defines loess; and that changes in packing define subsidence and flowsliding. Dijkstra(2000) has considered packing relative to Chinese loess ground failures and devised some conceptual approaches to develop an approach to the critical nature of loess packing. Model studies on loess packing have been attempted by Assallay et al(1997) and Dibben et al(1998). In the world of particle packing the seminal work of Graton and Fraser(1935) still casts a long shadow, and still tends to be the only packing work referred to in textbooks on soil mechanics. There are ways forward from Graton & Fraser

and it is possible that the ideal world may eventually meet the real world of the loess packing. Loess relates well to packing studies because it is the ground material in which psacking is the most impotant salient feature. Ways to move on from Graton & Fraser include: making their system more logical and complete (Allen 1982, Dijkstra et al.1995, Rogers et al.1994a, Smalley 1980); trying to introduce randomness rather than regularity; particles other than spheres, closer to reality; explorations of packing in other dimensions hoping to find data which has three dimensional relevance. Some elegant 2-dimensional packings have been produced by simple Monte Carlo methods which can simulate loess deposits(Dibben et al 1998) but they do in fact form a better simulation for lake bottom deposits which eventually become airborne dust (Evans et al 2004).

Loess landslides in the Danube Region Loess is widespread in Europe (Haase et al 2006) but it cannot be claimed that there is a significant problem with loess landslides. There are always subsidence problems wherever loess occurs but in Europe the necessary relief is lacking for there to be a major slide problem. The one place where slides occurred and where there has been some

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investigation and discussion is the loess bluffs along the Danube river. The Danube is a great loess river (see Smalley & Leach 1978, Smalley et al 2000) and it has moved and distributed loess material throughout the Quaternary period. A short distance aeolian transportation from floodplain to inshore location has produced some significant loess deposits close to the river. A very well known slide occurred at Dunaujvaros in Hungary in 1966 and this will be discussed. There is some current interest in Danube bluff slides because the Danube bluffs at Kozloduy in Bulgaria are being cionsidered as a site for a radioactive waste repository. The thick loess deposit contains several clay rich palaeosols and these are useful in isolating the waste zone. The loess could make a good repository for radwaste but obviously there has to be no danger of landsliding and slope failure.

The flowslide concept In a flowslide failure there is an effective change from solid ground to a liquid system. This appears to be the situation in the very large loess landslides, and the transition from solid to liquid merits some consideration. There are two obvious ways in which solid ground can turn to liquid (1) via a mudslide (2) via a flowslide; the distinction needs to be

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made. A true mudslide is a clay mineral controlled event, it is a phenomenon associated with clayeyness. As the water content of the clay soil system increases the liquid limit is exceeded and the rheological state of the system changesfrom plastic solid to free flowing but non-Newtonian liquid; and a mudslide can result. It could be seen as a gradual transition as very plastic solid becomes viscous liquid. In this viscous liquid the involved particles still have contact via long range bonds and this modifies the behaviour of the deforming ground. The transition to flowslide failure is seen as relatively sudden; a brittle ground suddenly loses strength, and if it is a wet system the disaggregated system can be supported and a flowing suspension is produced. The brittle ground which participates in a flowslide is dominated by short-range interparticle bonds, which are strong when undisturbed but lose all strength when disturbed and broken. Where the mudslide system depends on a predominance of active clay minerals and will have a high plasticity index, the flowslide system has a low PI and lacks clay minerals. The two classic flowsliding grounds are the very sensitive post-glacial marine clays of Canada and Scandinavia, the so-called quick clays, and loess. In each situation a particular set of geomorphological circumstances is required and the major flowslide is a relatively rare occurrence.

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Derbyshire (2001) has commented that mass movements in loess are frequently complex, with distinct block movements in the upper parts gradually changing into mass flowage akin to the flowslide type in the classification of Varnes (1958, 1978, see Hungr et al (2001) for refinements of flowslide classification). A slide usually occurs when a thin layer at the base of thick loess collapses because it is saturated. The extensive flow lobes cause the greatest damage to the human environment in the loess area of China. A good example of this type is the Saleshan slide(but focussing on the Cao 1986 type 1 system). The dependence of the slide mechanism on the structural collapse in a wet ground region at the base of the slide suggests that the classic collapse mechanism of subsiding loess and the great loess flowslides are very closely related. It points to the key loess factor/property being the open structure and the developed nature of the interparticle contacts. The fundamental nature of loess ground, dominated by particle nature and open airfall structure, controls both subsidence and large wscale landsliding. The fundamental mechanism of loess collapse needs to be understood if subsidence and landsliding are to be understood fully. Smalley and Derbyshire (1991) attempted to compare loess flowslides to other types of flowslide, in particular to the

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quck clay slides. The basic idea was to find common factors in the various types of slides and to possibly identify key variables. They did discuss the sliding-consolidation model of Hutchinson (1986) which is essentially the model supported in this review. Hutchinson postulated the existence of a zone of excess pore-fluid pressures at the commencement of the flowslide in at least the basal part of the debris sheet. Under the influence of the basal excess pore-fluid pressures, the debris sheet accelerates downslope by basal sliding, in a plug-flow mode (that is with velocity varying constantly with depth). During this process, the basal excess pore-fluid pressure is successively decreased by consolidation, through simple, upward drainage in the simplest case, until the leading element is brought to rest. The position where this occurs defines the runout of the flowslide. Smalley and Derbyshire (1991) proposed that the Hutchinson mechanism would apply to a wet base loess flowslide, and they went on to consider what they called external factors which influenced the default flowslide. They considered five major factors and produced flowslide profiles to assist in comparing actual flowslides. They drew the flowslide net quite widely and included events such as the great Niigata earthquake liquefaction event of 1964, mine waste tip failures (Smalley 1972), failures in halloysitic

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ground in New Zealand (Smalley et al 1980) and a range of Canadian and Scandinavian failures (Maerz & Smalley 1986). The Niigata event, in retrospect, looks like an interesting inclusion. It is possible to see a likeness between the ground failing at Niigata and the large apartment blocks tumbling and a basal loess failure mobilising the ground and the large blocks above falling and tumbling, as described by Derbyshire (2001). The five factors were M the mass factor; S the supporting medium; E the energy factor; B the bond factor and H the landscape factor. M mass factor. The major particles in a loess flowslide are loess particles with diameters of the order of 20-50um. In a quick clay flowslide the mode particles will be primary mineral particles perhaps an order of magnitude smaller, say 2-5um. The particle needs to be carried by the supporting medium, and it needs to be light enough to be mobilised by the initial slide causing events. S supporting medium. Water or air; Smalley and Derbyshire (1990) were concerned to offer alternatives, but this is probably unnecessary. They thought that large loess flowslides may be air supported but it seems likely now that this is not an important part of the flowslide process. It is

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the wet base slide which is of major concern. The loess flowslide is more like the quick clay flowslide than was appreciated. They are both essentially wet events. And the loess flowslide initial failure relates well to classic hydroconsolidation in loess. The remarkable relationship between loess and water extends to flowslide failures. E energy factor. The 1920 slide was a consequence of a very large earthquake and the largeness of the earthquake and the widespread landsliding activity and the subsquent interest in the event may have obscured the role of the landslide in the flowslide proceedure. B bond factor. In a simple distinction the interparticle bonds in engineering ground can be divided into two types. This dichotomy appears to be basic and fundamental but it must be emphasized that this is a simplifying concept. There are two bond types; long range bonds and short range bonds. The long range bond is the clay mineral bond in which electrically charged particles interact via a medium which contains positively charged ions. These largely determine the properties of clay mineral soils; they provide the c term in the classic Coulomb equation, they deliver cohesion, and plasticity. The short range bond operates between primary mineral particles; the bond can be quite strong but breaks

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when the system is disturbed. A chemical analogy might be that the short range bond is like the covalent bond while the long range bond is like the metallic bond. A short range bonded system can be cohesive, but it will not be plastic. A great leap forward in flowslide understanding occurred when the short range bond concept was proposed (Cabrera & Smalley 1973) and it has moved easily from the quick clays where it was first applied on to loess flowslides. The very simple system needs to be modified somewhat to fit loess slides. Loess is made essentially of silt-sized primary mineral particles, but the interparticle contacts are influenced by accumulations of clay mineral particles. The initial metastable deposit becomes more collapsible by the accumulation of clay mineral particles at the major particle contacts. A certain level of clay mineral content is required for collapse to occur. H landscape factor. Within the landscape system an impermeable sliding surface is required. Within the deposit a palaeosol or a lithological contact surface is required. In the landscape system at large some relief is required, but not vast relief. Potential energy is required for any slide system to progress; the loess slide is not associated with large relief.

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Levels The loess flowslide can be examined and appreciated at various levels- these are conceptual levels, rather than physical levels, essentially size/dimensional levels. 1. At particle contact level. The primary mineral particles form the basic packing. It is modified by clay minerals at the contacts; so overall it is essentially rigid, but plastic material has gathered at the contacts; trapped there by needle crystals of calcite which grew soon after loess deposition. A connection has been proposed between loessification and hydroconsolidation (Smalley & Markovic 2011) and this concentration of clay mineral particles at primary mineral contacts is a key related event, and thus is fundamental for the critical stages of loess flowsliding. 2. At soil structure level. The structure will collapse on hydroconsolidation. The metastable structure is collapsible; it becomes collapsible as clay minerals accumulate during loessification, a certain level of clay is required for the efficient collapse to occur. The soil structure must stay open before the collapse event; too great a superimposed load would cause collapse, hence the slide requirement of moderate thickness. This collapse is the key initiating factor in the loess slide event; this is the part of loessic nature which determines the nature of the slide.

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3. Block movement in flow stream. The ground is undermined by hydroconsolidation, and then there is liquefaction of the wet base level; these represent the critical beginning of a loess flowslide failure. A large superposed fissured brittle mass moves by breaking into large blocks which are carried by the flowstream, possibly breaking up as they progress and contributing to the material of the flowstream. But the blockflow is not really fundamental to the loess flowslide; it is an important event but the key actions occur at levels 1 and 2.

Commentary & Conclusions There are some specific requirements for a large flow slide type failure in loess, and some of the controls involved in these requirements can be explained, or at least discussed. The main conclusion has to be that the property of loess which allows hydroconsolidation also plays a key part in initiating loess landslides, which because of the overall nature of loess tend to become flowslides; and because of the huge amounts of loess in particular parts of the world tend to become huge flowslides. The critical loessic property is its open metastable, collapsible soil-structure, allied to a predominance of primary mineral particles and the

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consequent short-range bonding (low PI). Some features can be listed: 1. Moderate thickness, rather than great thickness. A feature of the Chinese loess is the great thickness of some deposits. Thicknesses of around 400m have been reported from Jiuzhaotai near Lanzhou; a long history of deposition has ensured that large areas of north China are covered by very thick deposits of a quite remarkable ground material. It is observed that the big slides tend to occur in deposits of moderate thickness rather than in deposits of enormous thickness. This presumably has a soil-structure related explanation. We are proposing that the open structure of the loess deposit is closely involved in the ground failure and sliding and this open structure is more likely to be preserved at the base of a modest deposit rather than at the base of a large deposit where enormous superposed loads will have caused structual collapse. 2. Some relief; some potential energy is required. The large thicknesses of the loess deposits automatically provide some load situations to drive ground movement. Also the terrain of north China is very hilly in parts and deposits form on sloping ground; the Saleshan slide was noticeably related to

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hilly terrain; there was plentiful potential energy to drive the ground moving event. 3. An imprevious sliding plane, bedrock or palaeosol. Since these large flowslides are wet-base events some impervious sliding plane is indicated. There is a choice in the Chinese loess systems. Within the loess system itself are many clayrich palaeosols which could provide the requisite impervious surface; there is the Pliocene red clay formation which underlies the entire loess system, and there can be alternative lithologies within the landscape systems. 4. Open structure; e > 1; an open particle packing. Perhaps this can be cited on two counts; to provide the basal collapsing system which will initiate the slide, and to provide the open structured ground mass above which can collapse on initial deformation and provide material for the consequent flowslide. This may be the point at which a loess slide becomes special; this may be where a separate category for loess slide is indeed indicated. The characteristic feature of a loess deposit is the open structure, the high voids ratio, e > 1. This is central to the whole discussion of loess material, and it is the defining factor which has to be explained when a theory of loess ground formation is being advanced. Loess is aeolian

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ground, loess deposits are airfall systems and this affects their landsliding behaviour. 5. Wet base; the role of water. Water seeps down through loess deposits, there are drainage paths. This is another factor which favours failure in deposits of modest thickness, rather than in thick deposits. The combination of water and an open structured loess prone to hydroconsolidation can cause the initial failure which cause the whole system to fail. The overall failure may be very complex eventually invoving classic circular slips and large block movements of the cohesive loess but the initial action is at the wet base. The fauilure is the classic loess collapse failure; the same failure which brought down the Atommash factory in Volgodonsk initiates the Saleshan landslide. This hydroconsolidation process is much studied (see Rogers et al 1994a, Trofimov 2001)- this is another central feature of the loess world; the loess deposit (the classic deposit of primary loess) suffers a structural collapse when loaded and wetted. What happens is best described by the small-clay model of failure. The particle contacts in the loess ground are controlled/modified by the presence of clay minerals. These soften when wetted allowing the main load bearing contacts to fail, and collapse ensues. A modest amount of clay is required in the system for this to occur; too little or too much clay prevents failure.

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Collapsibility grows as the clay mineral content increases; the clay mineral content essentially controls the collapse behaviour of the loess system- and this is the case for relatively straightforward building failures, and for large wetbottom slides. 6. Trigger energy; earthquakes. As in the sensitive clay situation an earthquake can trigger a slide event. The 1920 slide was earthquake triggered. An input of energy into a metastable system can cause failure; if an activation energy is exceeded failure can follow. Here is a key defining factor for a loess system, it is metastable, another consequence of the airfall process which produced the loess deposit. It is important to recognise metastability and collapsibility; metastability is required for collapse to occur but collapsibility is a different property. The huge energy of the 1920 earthquake may have mobilised ground which was not essentially collapsible; basal slides would have been activated but large blocks were in motion and very complex sliding behaviour occurred. Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the late Liu Tung sheng and fellow members of the UNEP group in North China- for practical assistance, and for scientific, intellectual and philosophical

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support. We also thank Professors Edward Derbyshire and Eiju Yatsu for continuing support and encouragement. We all press forward with the work on loess material.

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