Abstract
At Lake Coleridge, Canterbury, New Zealand, at least three rock avalanches have been released from a single source area during the Holocene. The first of these was of 107 m3 volume and dates to about 9,750 BP, and two with volumes 5 × 105 and 4 × 104 m3 occurred about 700 BP. All three crossed the course of the Ryton River; the latter two were emplaced within the part of the first that had subsequently been eroded by the Ryton River. All three were most likely triggered by, or related to, seismicity. The first rock avalanche formed a long-lived landslide dam, and no evidence remains to indicate whether its eventual failure was catastrophic. The second formed a correspondingly smaller dam, but there is no evidence that its lake was long-lived; however, a set of anomalously steep outwash terraces downstream of the landslide deposits show that it failed catastrophically. A camping ground is sited about 1 km downstream of the landslide deposits, and proposals to develop it further risk potentially severe hazards from future rock avalanche activity at the site.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the assistance provided by Mike and Karen Mears, managers of Ryton Station at the time of the research. Funding was provided by the Mason Trust of University of Canterbury, and the field assistance of Guyon Smith was invaluable. Phil Tonkin and Mauri McSaveney provided useful advice throughout the project.
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Lee, J., Davies, T. & Bell, D. Successive Holocene rock avalanches at Lake Coleridge, Canterbury, New Zealand. Landslides 6, 287–297 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-009-0163-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-009-0163-6