Large-scale landslides in Toyama Prefecture, central Japan, and their probable relationship with earthquakes

Large-scale landslides along the Kubusu and Besso rivers in Toyama Prefecture are developed in the Miocene Iwaine Formation, which is composed of andesitic lava, tuff, and tuff breccia. In the middle member of this formation, the tuff is easily altered to montmorillonite-bearing rock, and subsequent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental earth sciences 2014-03, Vol.71 (6), p.2753-2763
Main Authors: Kojima, Satoru, Nozaki, Tamotsu, Nagata, Hidehisa, Tanahashi, Ryota, Kondo, Ryoich, Okamura, Noriaki, Suzuki, Kazuhiro, Ikeda, Akiko, Nakamura, Toshio, Ohtani, Tomoyuki
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Aquifer management
Basins
Biogeosciences
carbon
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Earthquakes
Engineering and environment geology. Geothermics
Environmental Science and Engineering
Exact sciences and technology
Fault lines
Geochemistry
Geochronology
Geology
Hydrology/Water Resources
Isotope geochemistry. Geochronology
lakes
Landslides
Landslides & mudslides
Lava
Mass spectrometry
Miocene
Montmorillonite
Natural hazards: prediction, damages, etc
Original Article
Rivers
Rock
Rocks
Seismic activity
Seismic phenomena
Seismology
Terrestrial Pollution
Tuff
Water analysis
wood
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Summary:Large-scale landslides along the Kubusu and Besso rivers in Toyama Prefecture are developed in the Miocene Iwaine Formation, which is composed of andesitic lava, tuff, and tuff breccia. In the middle member of this formation, the tuff is easily altered to montmorillonite-bearing rock, and subsequently plays an important role in the development of landslides events, which tend to be large-scale events, as the massive lava of the upper member forms a cap rock over the tuff. The Kiritani and Koinami basins, which are flat intermontane basins located along the Kubusu and Besso rivers, respectively, are interpreted as landslide-dammed lakes, later filled with sediment. Accelerator mass spectrometry ¹⁴C ages show that the landslides forming each dam occurred simultaneously, at approximately 2500 BP. These ages were measured from wood fragments embedded in the landslide material of Kiritani, and from an in situ stump drowned during the impoundment of Koinami. If the trigger of these landslides was an earthquake, it is most likely to have been the penultimate event along the Atotsugawa fault zone.
ISSN:1866-6280
1866-6299
DOI:10.1007/s12665-013-2654-y