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Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering pp 3044–3078Cite as

Seismic Sources from Landslides and Glaciers

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Synonyms

Earthquakes generated by landslides and glaciers; Seismic activity of landslides and glaciers

Introduction

With few exceptions, the discovery and analysis of global earthquakes with landslides and glaciers as sources did not begin until the twenty-first century. This may come as a surprise considering that the magnitudes of such earthquakes have reached and even exceeded M = 5. In this essay, we describe the specific characteristics of these seismic signals and their source locations. We describe the source mechanisms and discuss the information that can be derived from interpretation of the data. In the case of landslides, the source process represents a severe hazard, and the same may be true for glaciers.

Although seismic signals from landslides and glaciers are observed at intermediate scales, we will jump from magnitudes of M ~ 5 to M < 0. The deployment of seismic stations on the target landslide or glacier is necessary to observe such weak signals. Systematic research...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation, TU Wien, 1040, Vienna, Austria

    Ewald Brückl

  2. Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik, 1190, Vienna, Austria

    Daniel Binder

  3. Mertl Research GmbH, 1140, Vienna, Austria

    Stefan Mertl

Authors
  1. Ewald Brückl
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  2. Daniel Binder
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  3. Stefan Mertl
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ewald Brückl .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Computer Science in Civil Engineering, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, University Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Michael Beer

  2. Department of Civil Engineering & Engineering Mechanics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Ioannis A. Kougioumtzoglou

  3. Institute for Risk & Uncertainty and Centre for Engineering Sustainability, Liverpool, UK

    Edoardo Patelli

  4. Institute for Risk & Uncertainty and Centre for Engineering Dynamics, Liverpool, UK

    Siu-Kui Au

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Brückl, E., Binder, D., Mertl, S. (2015). Seismic Sources from Landslides and Glaciers. In: Beer, M., Kougioumtzoglou, I.A., Patelli, E., Au, SK. (eds) Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35344-4_385

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