Loess Is More: Field Investigation and Slope Stability Analysis of the Tanana 440 Landslide, Interior Alaska

Abstract

Landslides are geologic hazards that threaten human life, property, and infrastructure. Proper mitigation requires knowledge of where landslides occurred in the past. Until recently, no landslide inventory maps had been published for any area of Alaska. Here, we present a short overview of landslide mapping within the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB), Alaska, and a focused investigation of the Tanana 440 (T440) landslide. We mapped 1,679 landslides and field-verified 51 landslides within the FNSB. These landslides vary in age, movement type, and material. We present the results of in-depth mapping; subsurface exploration; soil engineering properties, including results of direct shear testing; and slope stability analysis of the T440 landslide, which we determined is a flow slide in loess that occurred during the late Pleistocene to mid-Holocene. We modeled seven slope stability scenarios for the T440 landslide by varying water table position and seismic load. Our modeling results suggest that thawing permafrost and/or seismic loading were likely possible triggers for the T440 landslide. To our knowledge, we present the first comprehensive direct shear testing of non-plastic silt with a variation in moisture content and the first comparison of direct shear and field vane shear measurements of silt. The average cohesion and internal friction angle of the wetted remolded silt were 3.0 kPa and 23.1°, respectively. These values did not significantly change with increasing moisture content. The direct shear and vane shear strengths of silt had low correlation (R2 = 0.20), unlike the strong correlation that is typical of clay soils.