Numerical modelling of the geological processes responsible for mid-Pleistocene landslide inception: an insight into possible factors for the current landslide activity

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4. Numerical modelling of the geological processes responsible for mid-Pleistocene landslide inception: an insight into possible factors for the current landslide activity

The activity of deep landslides in marine stiff clay is currently recorded in several slopes within the south-eastern Italian Apennines and Foredeep. Based upon geological-geomorphological studies, such landslide activity was interpreted to be the long-term effect of geological processes, such as crustal uplift, marine regression or river erosion, which caused the inception of first slope failures in the far past. Such slopes experienced large shear straining within shear bands, location of weakened material, whose presence represents a crucial internal factor to be considered in the prediction of the current slope activity.

This paper presents the hydro-mechanical modelling of the geological history of a stiff clay slope, located in the western part of Chieuti in southern Italy, adopting an elasto-plastic law within a finite element code. The novelty of the work does not lie on the numerical tools or constitutive model adopted, but rather on the advanced implementation of the geological processes carried out within the modelling. Indeed, care has been particularly paid to the numerical modelling of the asymmetrical river valley erosion, and the corresponding down-cutting of the river, which induced the first inception of landsliding in the slope. In this way, the modelling has allowed to validate the hypothesis according to which the current displacements logged in the slope result from the activity of a very deep paleo-landslide, triggered by the erosion of the river valley in the geological past.

10th European Conference on Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering (NUMGE2023)

7. Dams, embankments and slopes