Ice formation within rock is known to be an important driver of near-surface frost weathering as well as of rock damage at the depth of several meters, which may play a crucial role for the slow preconditioning of rock fall in steep permafrost areas. This letter reports results from an experiment where acoustic emission monitoring was used to investigate rock damage in a high-alpine rockwall in...

This paper describes recent exceptional slope failures in high-mountain, glacial environments: The 2002 Kolka-Karmadon rock-ice avalanche in the Caucasus, a series of ice-rock avalanches on Iliamna Volcano, Alaska, the 2005 Mt. Steller rock-ice avalanche in Alaska, and ice and rock avalanches at Monte Rosa, Italy in 2005 and 2007. Deposit volumes range from 10 to 10 m and include rock, ice and ...

Iliamna is an andesitic stratovolcano of the Aleutian arc with regular gas and steam emissions and mantled by several large glaciers. Iliamna Volcano exhibits an unusual combination of frequent and large ice-rock avalanches in the order of 1×10 m to 3×10 m with recent return periods of 2–4 years. We have reconstructed an avalanche event record for the past 45 years that indicates Iliamna avalan...

This review examines interpretive issues relating to catastrophic, long-runout landslides in the context of large numbers of recently discovered late Quaternary events. It links relevant research in landslide science, including some novel or hitherto-ignored complexities in the nature and role of these events, to broader concerns of mountain geomorphology. Attention is drawn to mountain ranges ...

[1] In mountainous landscapes the role of periglacial processes in producing sediment is poorly defined, despite evidence of abundant talus slopes. Ice growth in rock has long been recognized as an efficient erosion mechanism, but the effects have not been readily applied to landscape evolution in response to tectonic and climatic forcing. Here, we quantify how and where ice-driven mechanical e...