Of the International Association of ENGINEERING GEOLOGY NO

BULLETIN de I'Assoc,ation Internationale de GEOLOGIE DE L'INGI~NIEUR 43 PARIS 1 991

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A SIMPLE DEFINITION OF A L A N D S L I D E

UNE DI~FINITION SIMPLE D'UN GLISSEMENT DE TERRRAIN

D.M. C R U D E N *

Sunlmary

.,\ landslide is the movement o1 a mass of rock. earth or debris dov,n a slope.

Rdsumd
Un glisscment de terrain esl la descentc d'une masse tic roche, dc terrc ou dc ddbris Ic long d'un versant.

Introduction way (1975), Denness et al. (1975) and Brunsden and

Jones (1972. 1976). Only the last authors called these
One obstacle to a simple definition of "landslide" is slope m o v e m e n t s "landslides".
the erroneous assumption that a landslide is, simply, a In North A m e r i c a . at the c e n t u r y ' s turn, the well known
slide of land. A similar linguistic analysis would sug- description of "The great landslide at Frank" by
gest that a c o w b o y is a male calf. The less formal analy- McConnell and Brock (1904) quoted only the G e r m a n
sis here starts with a review of the history o f the term. language literature for t e r m i n o l o g y . What is now
With this background, some current d e f i n i t i o n s can be classified as a rock fall-debris flow or p o s s i b l y a rock
rephrased in the t e r m i n o l o g y of the Working Party on slide-debris flow (Van G a s s e n and Cruden, 1989), was
World Landslide I n v e n t o r y (1990) to give the simple, termed a rock a v a l a n c h e (p. 1), a landslip (p. 11), a land
e a s i l y - u n d e r s t o o d definition which forms the Summary. slide (p. 12), and a rock slide (p. 16), indicating the
The definition is intended for informal, non-technical range o f the t e r m i n o l o g y of slope m o v e m e n t s then
use. available.
"Landslip" had been introduced to the technical litera-
ture by Lyell (though the O x f o r d English Dictionary
History noted a p o p u l a r use o f the term in 1678). R u d w i c k
(1970) c l a i m e d that "Charles L y e l l ' s Principles of Ge-
C o w b o y s and L a n d s l i d e s are both North A m e r i c a n ology should be n u m b e r e d a m o n g the most revolution-
words. The Oxford English Dictionary (Onions, 1933) ary books in the history of science.., the Principles
suggested that "landslide" was a U.S. (United States of e n j o y e d i m m e d i a t e success a m o n g the e d u c a t e d reading
America) usage e q u i v a l e n t to the English word "land- public, and eleven s u c c e s s i v e editions were called for
slip". W h i l e the D i c t i o n a r y was p u b l i s h e d in 1933, the up to the end o f L y e l l ' s life...". The first edition was
letter "L" had been c o m p i l e d by 1902 and reflected the in three volumes, Volume 1 was published in 1830,
English language at the turn of the century. The Dic- Volume 2 in 1832 and Volume 3 in 1833. S e c o n d edi-
tionary defined a landslip as "the sliding down of a tions of Volume 1 and 2 p u b l i s h e d in 1832 and 1833
mass of land on a mountain or a cliffside: land which a p p e a r e d before the first e d i t i o n o f Volume 3 (Rudwick,
has so fallen". C o n t e m p o r a r y English studies of scenery 1970). The glossary of L y e l l ' s work (1833) gave land-
(Lubbock 1902. Marr 1916) m e n t i o n e d "landslips" slip as "A portion of land that has slid down in con-
without mentioning "landslides". The Dorset coastal sequence of d i s t u r b a n c e by an e a r t h q u a k e or from being
landslips noted by L u b b o c k (1902, p. 223) continued undermined by water w a s h i n g a w a y the lower beds
and have been d e s c r i b e d by A r b e r (1941, 1973), Con- which supported it". This n a r r o w d e f i n n i t i o n reflected

* Department of Civil Engineering University o1" Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2G7
 28
L y e l l ' s limited e x p e r i e n c e of slope m o v e m e n t s . The ex-
amples of landslips noted in the index are, again, from
the south and east coasts of England, the C a l a b r i a n
earthquake of 1783 and the J a m a i c a n earthquake of
1692. "Landslide" is not included in the G l o s s a r y or
the index of the three volumes.
Lyell did use "slide" at least twice. In Volume 2, chap-
ter 14 under a heading " I m b e d d i n g o f organic remains
in alluvium and the ruins caused by landslips", Lyell
mentioned the G o l d a u rock s l i d e - d e b r i s flow, "The
number of lives lost by the slide o f the Rossberg, in
Switzerland, in 1806, was e s t i m a t e d at more than eight
hundred, a great n u m b e r of bodies being buried under
mud and rock, at great depths, as well as several villages
and scattered houses". No reference was given, so pre-
sumably, Lyell had visited the slide on his way to Italy.
In Volume 1, pp. 192-193, Lyell d e s c r i b e d m o v e m e n t s
on the slopes o f the W h i t e M o u n t a i n s o f New Ham-
pshire caused by the heavy rains o f 28th August, 1826.
Under a h e a d i n g o f "Floods, Bursting of Lakes", there
is a paraphrase o f Silliman, B., Wilcox, C., B a l d w i n
(1829, p. 220). "The a v a l a n c h e s were very numerous:
they were not h o w e v e r ruptures of the main foundation
rock of the m o u n t a i n but slides from very steep d e c l i v i -
ties beginning in m a n y instances at the very top o f the
mountain and c a r r y i n g down in one p r o m i s c u o u s and
frightful rain, forests and shrubs and the earth that sus-
tained them; stones and rocks i n n u m e r a b l e and many
of great size such as would fill a c o m m o n apartment,
the slide took e v e r y t h i n g with it d o w n to the solid
mountain rock and being p r o d u c e d by torrents of water,
which a p p e a r e d to have burst like water spouts upon
the mountains".
The slope m o v e m e n t s in the W h i t e Mountains attracted
the interest of C.F.S. Sharpe (1938, p.ix) "Bare scars
down steep m o u n t a i n slopes are c o n s p i c u o u s features
in that part of N e w England and the destructive W i l l e y
slide of 1826 is well r e m e m b e r e d in local folklore".
Sharpe (1938, p. 61) c l a s s i f i e d the m o v e m e n t s as debris
avalanches c o m m e n t i n g "Were there a s m a l l e r water
content the s a m e material w o u l d m o v e as a debris
slide.., initial m o v e m e n t and p r o g r e s s on the steep
upper part of the course is caused by slippage, s o m e -
times on a s m o o t h underlying rock surface and s o m e -
times within loose debris. R e c o r d e d slopes range from
about twenty to forty degrees near the head but flatten
out to fifteen d e g r e e s or less t o w a r d the terminus where
the a c c u m u l a t e d m o m e n t u m and a high water content
cause the mass to flow forward in a m a n n e r s i m i l a r to
a typical m u d - f l o w " .
These extensive quotations show that the slides were
outside L y e l l ' s definition of landslip and the slides at
G o l d a u and in the W h i t e M o u n t a i n s both flowed. Sil-
liman et al. (1829) used "slide" in the sense of the glid-
ing or flowing o f a stream, a sense noted by the O x f o r d
English D i c t i o n a r y as "now rare". H o w e v e r the Diction-
ary gave without c o m m e n t a m e a n i n g for the verb as
"pass from one p l a c e or point to another with a s m o o t h
and continuous m o v e m e n t , e s p e c i a l l y through the air,
water or along a surface". The first use of "landslide"
was in N i l e s ' N a t i o n a l R e g i s t e r for 6 october, 1838,
which reported, under the h e a d i n g "Land slide in Vicks-
burg", "An a v a l a n c h e or sinking of the earth on the
margin of the landing at Vicksburg" ( C r a i g i e and Hul-
bert, 1942).
L a n d s l i d i n g has s p r e a d to s u b a q u e o u s and submarine
slope m o v e m e n t s ( T e r z a g h i , 1956). ]'his extension, of
course, fell within T e r z a g h i ' s defintion of a landslide
(Terzaghi, 1950)".. rapid d i s p l a c e m e n t of a mass of
rock, residual soil or s e d i m e n t s a d j o i n i n g a slope in
which the centre of g r a v i t y o f the m o v i n g mass ad-
vances in a d o w n w a r d a n d outward direction". Again,
"Recently c o l l e c t e d e v i d e n c e shows that some of the
w o r l d ' s largest l a n d s l i d e s have occurred on the steep,
s u b m e r g e d volcanic s l o p e s o f the H a w a i i a n Islands"
(Lee, 1989, p. 373).
Landslides, then, are not c o n f i n e d to the land or to slid-
ing in the modern sense o f the term. L i k e "cowboy",
"landslide" is another N o r t h A m e r i c a n word formed by
two words which t o g e t h e r mean s o m e t h i n g entirely
different.
Some definitions
The G l o s s a r y of G e o l o g y ( B a t e s and Jackson, 1987) de-
fined a landslide as "...the d o w n s l o p e transport under
gravitational influence o f soil and rock material en
masse. Usually the d i s p l a c e d material moves over a
relatively confined zone o r surface of shear". This defi-
nition can be s i m p l i f i e d by r e m o v i n g the q u a l i f y i n g
sentence and translating all of what r e m a i n s into less
pretentious English.
W e b s t e r ' s 3rd I n t e r n a t i o n a l D i c t i o n a r y took this ap-
proach to give "The u s u a l l y r a p i d d o w n slope m o v e -
ment of a mass of rock, earth or artificial fill on a
slope" If, again, q u a l i f i c a t i o n s o f the central idea can
be r e m o v e d and we use t h e t e r m i n o l o g y of the Working
Party on World L a n d s l i d e I n v e n t o r y (1990), a landslide
is" The m o v e m e n t o f a m a s s o f rock, earth or debris
d o w n a slope". This is t h e informal definition recently
adopted by the W o r k i n g Party and s u g g e s t e d for use
in the International D e c a d e for Natural D i s a s t e r Reduc-
tion (I 990-2000).
Acknowledgements
As C h a i r m a n o f the W o r k i n g Party on World L a n d s l i d e
Inventory, I am p l e a s e d to a c k n o w l e d g e the s t i m u l a t i n g
discussions within the W o r k i n g Party that led to this
note. The m e m b e r s o f t h e W o r k i n g Party are listed in
Volume 41 o f the I A E G B u l l e t i n on p. 12. We are all
grateful to U N E S C O ' s E a r t h Science D i v i s i o n for fund-
ing travel o f m e m b e r s to meetings.
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 29
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