THE EXTRAORDINARY 2002 KOLKA GLACIER-KARMADON ROCK/ICE AVALANCHE AND SUBSEQUENT GLACIER/DEBRIS FLOW, CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS, OSSETIA REPUBLIC,

RUSSIA
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Stephen G. Evans, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, CANADA

CASE HISTORIES AND HAZARD ASSESSMENT FOR MOBILE, VERY RAPID LANDSLIDES
1. POST-EVENT RECONSTRUCTION: INTERPRETATION OF SEQUENCE, CHARACTERISTICS, AND GEOMETRY OF POSTFAILURE PROCESSES (FIELD WORK, DIGITAL TERRAIN DATA, REMOTE SENSING, SEISMOGRAMS, HYDRO-METEOROLOGICAL DATA) 2. ATTEMPTS TO MODEL DYNAMIC BEHAVIOUR BASED ON (1) 3. COMPARISON TO SIMILAR EVENTS (ANOMALIES ?)

4. IMPLICATIONS FOR HAZARD ASSESSMENT

INITIAL FAILURE MECHANISM/VOLUME PREVIOUS EVENT ENTRAINMENT VOLUME CONFINEMENT CAPRICIOUS JUMP

DEPOSITIONAL FAN RUNOUT 1

DISTAL FLOW RUNOUT 2 ELEMENTS OF MOBILE, VERY RAPID LANDSLIDE PROCESSES

THE CASE OF THE 2002 KOLKA-KARMADON EVENT, CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS, RUSSIA

Date of event : September 20, 2002

ASTER False Colour Imagery 03/Oct/2001 27/Sept/2002

International Space Station Photograph October 19/2002

4380 m

image by Alexander Polkvoy

Image by Alexander Polkvoy

WIDTH ~ 450 m DEPTH ~ 275 m

SUPERELEVATION ~ 75 m

SUMMARY GEOMETRY
Top of starting zone ~ 4350 m Base of source slope ~ 3250 m Elevation of Karmadon Gorge ~ 1320 m Height of path to Gorge ~ 3030 m Length of path to Gorge ~ 19 klm

Travel Angle to Gorge ~ 9 degrees

Average velocity ~ 91 m/s Source Volume ~ 20 M cu m Volume of Kolka Glacier ripped off ~ 110 M cu m Volume of surficial material entrained in Genaldon Valley ~ 20 M cu m Total Volume ~ 150 M cu. m

Earthquake-triggered 1970 Huascaran rock avalanche, Peruvian Andes

1987 Parraguirre rock avalanche-debris flow, Chilean Andes 1959 Pandemonium Creek rock avalanche, Coast Mountains, B.C.

Comparative geometry of Kolka and similar historical events since 1959

EVENT

YEAR VOLUME ESTIMATE (M cu. m) Pandemonium 1959 7 Huascaran 1962 13 Huascaran 1970 75-100 Parraguirre 1987 13 Kolka2002 150 Karmadon

HEIGHT LENGTH H/L FAHRBOSCHUNG (km) (km) (degrees) 2 3.60 3.85 1.5 3.03 8.6 15.52 15.6 17 19 0.23 0.23 0.25 0.09 0.16 13 13 14 5 9

N.B. Downstream limits of rock avalanche/debris flow not well constrained in these cases

CONCLUSIONS and IMPLICATIONS 1

1. Exemplifies catastrophic potential in glacierised mountains 2. Comparable to 1959 Pandemonium Creek (Canada), 1962 & 1970 Huascaran (Peru) and 1987 Parraguirre (Chile) events 3. Average velocity highly anomalous 4. Mechanism of Kolka Glacier entrainment still not clear. 5. Evidence of previous events 6. Potential exists in other valleys in the region with glaciers and steep slopes in upper reaches 7. Difficulty in characterising true landslide geometry (source vol., entrainment and distal flow limits)

CONCLUSIONS and IMPLICATIONS 2

1. Initial volume and failure mechanism often quite difficult to establish in high mountains 2. Post-failure behaviour may involve and may be influenced by entrainment 3. Entrainment may be massive.

4. Difficulty in characterising true landslide geometry (entrainment and distal flow limits)
5. 3 and 4 pose modelling problems; true prediction (as opposed to retrodiction) is possibly far off. 6. Hazard assessment for risk evaluation is conditioned by this uncertainty 7. Previous events should be a very substantial warning to the landslide specialist _____________________________________

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1. NATO
2. Ministry of Natural Resources (Russian Federation) Oleg Zerkal 3. Igor Galushkin, Alexander Polkovoy, Elena Pigareva, Andrei Goncharov, Olga Tutubalina