Articles | Volume 7, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-7-879-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-7-879-2019
Research article
 | 
20 Sep 2019
Research article |  | 20 Sep 2019

River channel width controls blocking by slow-moving landslides in California's Franciscan mélange

Noah J. Finnegan, Kiara N. Broudy, Alexander L. Nereson, Joshua J. Roering, Alexander L. Handwerger, and Georgina Bennett

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Cited articles

Baum, R. L., Savage, W. Z., and Wasowski, J.: Mechanics of Earthflows, in: Proceedings of the International Conference FLOWS, Sorrento, 11–13 May 2003, Italy, 2003. 
Bennett, G. L., Roering, J. J., Mackey, B. H., Handwerger, A. L., Schmidt, D. A., and Guillod, B. P.: Historic drought puts the brakes on earthflows in Northern California, Geophys. Res. Lett., 43, 5725–5731, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL068378, 2016a. 
Bennett, G. L., Miller, S. R., Roering, J. J., and Schmidt, D. A.: Landslides, threshold slopes, and the survival of relict terrain in the wake of the Mendocino Triple Junction, Geology, 44, 363–366, https://doi.org/10.1130/G37530.1, 2016b. 
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Short summary
In some settings, landslides trigger valley blockages that impound huge volumes of sediment, often drastically changing river habitat and habitability. In other settings, landslides appear to have little effect on rivers. In this study, we explore what governs the different sensitivity of rivers to blocking from landslide debris. We accomplish this by comparing two sites in California with dramatic differences in blocking from otherwise similar slow-moving landslides.
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