Valuable geological and environmental information can be obtained from the 200 m thick lacustrine sediments in the Diexi lake(an ancient landslide-dammed lake) of the Minjiang River. The shaking table test method was employed to study the disturbance phenomena which occurred in the Diexi lake sediments. The results show that the disturbance phenomena were caused by liquefaction-induced flows in the unconsolidated lacustrine sediments, due to triggering by earthquakes. The deformations only occurred in unconsolidated sediment layers and not in consolidated layers. This means that a consolidated layer cannot be liquefied and disturbed again by an earthquake for a second time. The disturbance on one layer corresponds to only one earthquake. The temporal occurrence of earthquakes could be determined by disturbance layers generated at different ages. In total, 10 disturbed layers were found in the lacustrine sediments of the Diexi lake. The experiments showed that there were more than 10 earthquakes between 30 ka B.P. and 15 ka B.P. in the Diexi lake area based on the dating of the disturbed sediment layers.
In 1999, Diexi paleo-dammed lake(2349 m a.s.l.) was discovered around Diexi town along the Minjiang River in Sichuan province. Diexi is located where the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau and the Sichuan Basin meet. The dammed lake was formed during the Last Glacial Maximum of the Late Pleistocene(~30,000 years ago) and began to empty about 15,000 years ago. The lacustrine sediments(up to 240 m thick) preserve abundant paleoenvironment information. In this paper, a mass of oxygen isotopes and 14 C dating from drilled cores are analyzed and discussed. The δ18 O curve on the paleo climate from this section is comparable with the coeval paleo climatic curves of ice cores and karsts in China and others. Furthermore, the physical model testing has confirmed that the disturbed zones in the core are caused by strong earthquakes occurred at least 10 times, which implies strong crustal deformation, as an important driving force, affecting climate change. This study provides a new window to observe East Asian monsoon formation, paleoenvironmental evolution and the global climate change.
WANG Lan-shengWANG Xiao-qunSHEN Jun-huiYIN GuanCUI JieXU Xiang-ningZHANG Zhi-longWAN TaoWEN Li-wang
This study discussed how cavity gas pressure affects the stability of rock mass with fractures under well controlled laboratory experiments.Suddenly-created void space created and the induced gas pressures have been the focus of active researches because they are associated with fast movement of large-scale landslides.A shaking table experiment was set up to mimic weak-intercalated rock slope under seismic loads.Excessive cavity gas pressure would be produced in weak spots upon a sudden vibration load.The drastically elevated gas pressure is believed to be responsible for the creation of cavities surrounding the tension fracture.With dissipation of the excessive cavity gas pressure,the fractures are in unbounded closed-state.This observation explains that the slope body would be split and loosened under several aftershocks,and with the expanding of the cracks,the slope failure eventually occurred.The research of the mechanism of cavity gas pressure could provide a novel insight into the formation mechanism of landslides under seismic load and has implications for the disaster prevention and control theory for the slope stability evaluation.
