Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Landslide-glacier interaction in a neoparaglacial setting at tverrbytnede, jotunheimen, Southern Norway

Owen, Geraint; Hiemstra, John F.; Matthews, John A.; Mcewen, Lindsey J.

Authors

Geraint Owen

John F. Hiemstra

John A. Matthews

Lindsey McEwen Lindsey.Mcewen@uwe.ac.uk
Professor in Environmental Management



Abstract

A tongue-like, boulder-dominated deposit in Tverrbytnede, upper Visdalen, Jotunheimen, southern Norway, is interpreted as the product of a rock avalanche (landslide) due to its angular to subangular boulders, surface morphology with longitudinal ridges, down-feature coarsening, and cross-cutting relationship to 'Little Ice Age' moraines. The rock avalanche fell onto glacier ice, probably channelled along a furrow between two glaciers, and stopped on the glacier foreland, resulting in its elongated shape and long runout distance. Its distal margin may have become remobilized as a rock glacier, but a rock glacier origin for the entire landform is discounted due to lack of source debris, presence of matrix, lack of transverse ridges, and sparcity of melt-out collapse pits. Lichenometric dating of the deposit indicates an approximate emplacement age of ad 1900. Analysis highlights the interaction of rock-slope failures and glaciers during deglacierization in a neoparaglacial setting, with reduced slope stability due to debuttressing and permafrost degradation, and enhanced landslide mobility due to flow over a glacier and topographic channelling. Implications for the differentiation of relict landslides, moraines and rock glaciers are discussed and interrelationships between these landforms are considered in terms of an ice-debris process continuum. © The authors 2010 Geografiska Annaler: Series A © 2010 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography.

Citation

Owen, G., Hiemstra, J. F., Matthews, J. A., & Mcewen, L. J. (2010). Landslide-glacier interaction in a neoparaglacial setting at tverrbytnede, jotunheimen, Southern Norway. Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography, 92(4), 421-436. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0459.2010.00405.x

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Dec 1, 2010
Journal Geografiska Annaler, Series A: Physical Geography
Print ISSN 1468-0459
Electronic ISSN 1468-0459
Publisher Taylor & Francis
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 92
Issue 4
Pages 421-436
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0459.2010.00405.x
Keywords holocene, landslides, landslide-glacier interaction,
neoparaglacial, Norway
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/972911