Berg et al_CGJ_Accepted_2018.pdf (2.2 MB)
Correlation of acoustic emissions with patterns of movement in an extremely slow moving landslide at Peace River, Alberta, Canada
journal contribution
posted on 2018-02-09, 11:23 authored by Nancy Berg, Alister SmithAlister Smith, Shawn Russell, Neil Dixon, Don Proudfoot, Andrew TakeThe Peace River region, Alberta, Canada, has experienced extensive landslide activity since deglaciation. Shear zones within weak lacustrine silt and clay layers typically experience continuous creep, damaging highway and utilities infrastructure. However, occasionally, movement accelerates and potentially catastrophic failures occur. Conventional deformation monitoring approaches provide incremental measurements with low temporal resolution and do not necessarily allow rapid changes in stability to be detected and communicated sufficiently in advance to provide early warning. The study objectives were to: (i) acquire a long-term dataset of continuous deformation measurements with high temporal resolution of a case study slope in Peace River; (ii) enhance understanding of a typical creeping Peace River slope’s behavior in response to climatic drivers; and (iii) investigate the potential of an Acoustic Emission (AE) monitoring system to provide early warning of accelerating deformation behavior. ShapeAccelArray (SAA) and AE instruments were installed, in addition to conventional inclinometers and piezometers. Measurements show that the landslide is ‘extremely slow’, moving on average 5-mm annually, and reveal seasonal activity with periods of acceleration and deceleration driven by pore-water pressures. Measured AE correlated strongly with the rate and magnitude of SAA-measured displacement, demonstrating the potential of the AE technique to warn of accelerating behavior.
Funding
The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.The support provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/H007261, EP/D035325) and Loughborough University to Alister Smith and Neil Dixon is gratefully acknowledged.
History
School
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Published in
Canadian Geotechnical JournalCitation
BERG, N. ... et al, 2018. Correlation of acoustic emissions with patterns of movement in an extremely slow moving landslide at Peace River, Alberta, Canada. Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 55(10), pp. 1475-1488.Publisher
NRC Research Press (© The Authors)Version
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Acceptance date
2018-02-05Publication date
2018-02-05Notes
This paper was published in the journal Canadian Geotechnical Journal and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1139/cgj-2016-0668.ISSN
0008-3674eISSN
1208-6010Publisher version
Language
- en