The grain size distribution and composition of the Touzhai rock avalanche deposit in Yunnan, China

The September 23, 1991 rock avalanche that occurred in Touzhai, Zhaotong, Yunnan province of China claimed 216 lives and caused heavy property losses. The Touzhai avalanche possesses typical and representative feature of high-mobility. Field surveys are applied in the exploration of the grain size d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Engineering geology 2018-02, Vol.234, p.97-111
Main Authors: Ren, Zhe, Wang, Kun, Yang, Kui, Zhou, Zhen-Hua, Tang, Yong-Jun, Tian, Lin, Xu, Ze-Min
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Basalt
Grain size distribution
Rock avalanche
Transport mechanism
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Summary:The September 23, 1991 rock avalanche that occurred in Touzhai, Zhaotong, Yunnan province of China claimed 216 lives and caused heavy property losses. The Touzhai avalanche possesses typical and representative feature of high-mobility. Field surveys are applied in the exploration of the grain size distribution and deposit composition, and the lab analyses provide important information about the occurrence mechanism of the rock avalanche flow. The Touzhai rock avalanche has a volume of 9millionm3 that traveled about 3.4km along Touzhai valley within 3min, with an effective coefficient of friction of 0.22. The deposit of the Touzhai rock avalanche contains a wide spectrum of grain sizes (50cm) outcropped in the deposit surface is 0.2%. Compared with the upper reaches, a greater number of boulders are found to exist in the middle- and lower reaches of the rock avalanche flow. The non-uniformity coefficient, curvature coefficient and fractal dimension of the deposit (
ISSN:0013-7952
1872-6917
DOI:10.1016/j.enggeo.2018.01.007