Earth, Planets and Space (May 2022)
Rheological properties of halloysite soil slurry: a case study of weathered tephra involved in a shallow landslide triggered by the 2018 Eastern Iburi earthquake in Hokkaido, Japan
Abstract
Abstract The 6.7 M w Eastern Iburi earthquake of 6 September 2018 triggered destructive landslides in southern Hokkaido, Japan, many of which were characterized by the flow-like downslope movement of volcanic soils formed from weathered tephra containing halloysite. This study aims to elucidate the mechanism of landslide generation through rheological characterization of halloysite soil slurries. The examined slurries were prepared from either oven-dried or moist soil. Both slurries showed a power-law correlation between measured yield stress and moisture content. However, at a given water content, slurry made from dried soil showed stresses that are one-to-two orders of magnitude lower than those of slurry made from moist soil. Compared with the measurements for the slurry of dried soil, those for the slurry of moist soil are closer to prior numerical modeling of a specific landslide, indicating that the soils involved were moist. The yield stress also varied with slurry pH, generally increasing with decreasing pH, which is in part explained by the DLVO force model based on the electrical double layer and van der Waals forces between the colloidal particles. The pH dependence is more prominent in the slurry of moist soil, and thus the mechanical state of the slope appears to vary significantly with rainfall-induced changes in subsurface chemistry. Dynamic viscoelasticity measurement indicated that both initially solid-like slurries can become fluid under an applied oscillatory strain of 0.5 to 10 Hz: the susceptibility to fluidization depends greatly on water content and frequency. The ground motion during the earthquake easily fluidized the slurry, indicating this was a factor contributing to the observed flow-like landslides. Graphical Abstract
Keywords
