What is the difference between creep and landslide

Air trapped under the falling rocks acts as a cushion that keeps the rock from slowing down. Figure 3. Landslides are exceptionally destructive. Homes may be destroyed as hillsides collapse. Landslides can even bury entire villages. Landslides may create lakes when the rocky material dams a stream.

If a landslide flows into a lake or bay, they can trigger a tsunami figure 4. Figure 4. The landslide into Lituya Bay, Alaska, created a m tsunami that knocked down trees at elevations higher than the Empire State Building light gray.

Landslides often occur on steep slopes in dry or semi-arid climates. The California coastline, with its steep cliffs and years of drought punctuated by seasons of abundant rainfall, is prone to landslides. At-risk communities have developed landslide warning systems. Geological Survey use rain gauges to monitor soil moisture. If soil becomes saturated, the weather service issues a warning. Hillside properties in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere may be prone to damage from landslides.

Geologists are studying the warning signs and progress of local landslides to help reduce risks and give people adequate warnings of these looming threats. Movement is caused by shear stress sufficient to produce permanent deformation, but too small to produce shear failure.

There are generally three types of creep: 1 seasonal, where movement is within the depth of soil affected by seasonal changes in soil moisture and soil temperature; 2 continuous, where shear stress continuously exceeds the strength of the material; and 3 progressive, where slopes are reaching the point of failure as other types of mass movements. Creep is indicated by curved tree trunks, bent fences or retaining walls, tilted poles or fences, and small soil ripples or ridges fig. The dominant mode of movement is lateral extension accompanied by shear or tensile fractures.

The failure is caused by liquefaction, the process whereby saturated, loose, cohesionless sediments usually sands and silts are transformed from a solid into a liquefied state. Failure is usually triggered by rapid ground motion, such as that experienced during an earthquake, but can also be artificially induced.

When coherent material, either bedrock or soil, rests on materials that liquefy, the upper units may undergo fracturing and extension and may then subside, translate, rotate, disintegrate, or liquefy and flow. Lateral spreading in fine-grained materials on shallow slopes is usually progressive. The failure starts suddenly in a small area and spreads rapidly. Often the initial failure is a slump, but in some materials movement occurs for no apparent reason.

Combination of two or more of the above types is known as a complex landslide. Geological causes a. Weak or sensitive materials b. Weathered materials c. Sheared, jointed, or fissured materials d. Adversely oriented discontinuity bedding, schistosity, fault, unconformity, contact, and so forth e. Morphological causes a. Tectonic or volcanic uplift b. Glacial rebound c. Fluvial, wave, or glacial erosion of slope toe or lateral margins d. Subterranean erosion solution, piping e.

Deposition loading slope or its crest f. Vegetation removal by fire, drought g. Thawing h. Freeze-and-thaw weathering i. Shrink-and-swell weathering. Human causes a. Excavation of slope or its toe b. Loading of slope or its crest c.

I'm guessing that a mudslide is when mud makes a big river and runs down hills, while a landslide is when rocks fall off mountains, or something like that.

I think. Log in. Study now. See Answer. Best Answer. Mass movement is a fast process in the formation of landslides. Mass movement is a slow process in the formation of creep.

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What is the main difference between a slump and a landslide? Name three kinds of mass movement? As you step on the mountain path bits of rock and soil fall downhill Would it be a landslide mudslide slump or creep? Rotational landslides occur where more resistant rocks founder over underlying weaker rocks. Multiple failures may produce spectacular whole mountainside collapse, as at Trotternish in Skye and at Hallaig in Raasay.

At Hallaig, the landslide complex continues under water, down to the seabed. They range in character from sloppy wet mudflows to slurries of rock debris similar in texture to wet concrete. Debris flows begin on steep slopes of more than 20 degrees. But they can continue to travel over much gentler ground that slopes at only 10 degrees. How far a debris flow can travel depends on how much debris it carries compared to the volume of water.

A debris flow often starts off as a translational slide, but the water and rubble mix as the slide moves downslope, forming a slurry that flows. Debris flows often leave a trail of rubble in their wake, forming distinctive ridges or levees. Debris flows range in size from 1m to 10m across, and may carry up to several cubic metres of debris. One-off debris flows may occur on open hillsides, but repeated debris flows are more common below gullies. Debris cones form where repeated debris flows build up.

Many debris cones in the Highlands have periods of activity and quiet. To trigger them, suitable weather conditions are needed and enough mud and rock must have collected higher up in the gully floor. Creep is the slow downslope movement of material under gravity.