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Hydro-mechanical interactions of a rock slope with a retreating temperate valley glacier
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  • Marc Hugentobler,
  • Jordan Balfour Aaron,
  • Simon Loew,
  • Clement Roques
Marc Hugentobler
ETH Zurich

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Jordan Balfour Aaron
ETH Zurich
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Simon Loew
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
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Clement Roques
ETH Zurich
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Abstract

Rock slope failures often result from progressive rock mass damage which accumulates over long timescales, and is driven by changing environmental boundary conditions. In deglaciating environments, rock slopes are affected by stress perturbations driven by mechanical unloading due to ice downwasting and concurrent changes in thermal and hydraulic boundary conditions. Since in-situ data is rare, the different processes and their relative contribution to slope damage remain poorly understood. Here we present detailed analyses of subsurface pore pressures and micrometer scale strain time series recorded in three boreholes drilled in a rock slope aside the retreating Great Aletsch Glacier (Switzerland). Additionally, we use monitored englacial water levels, climatic data, and annually acquired ice surface measurements for our process analysis. Pore pressures in our glacial adjacent rock slope show a seasonal signal controlled by infiltration from snowmelt and rainfall as well as effects from the connectivity to the englacial hydrological system. We find that reversible and irreversible strains are driven by hydromechanical effects from diffusing englacial pressure fluctuations and pore pressure reactions on infiltration events, stress transfer related to changing mechanical glacial loads from short-term englacial water level fluctuations and longer-term ice downwasting, and thermomechanical effects from annual temperature cycles penetrating the shallow subsurface. We relate most observed irreversible strain (damage) to mechanical unloading from ice downwasting. Additionally, short-term stress changes related to mechanical loading from englacial water level fluctuations and hydromechanical effects from pore pressure variations due to infiltration events were identified to contribute to the observed irreversible strain.
Apr 2022Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface volume 127 issue 4. 10.1029/2021JF006484